


The Restoration Artist

by superheroresin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Art History, Artist Steve Rogers, Canon-Typical Violence, Conspiracy, Heist, M/M, Magical Realism, Nazi hunting, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Urban Fantasy, War Crimes, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-01 18:44:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 109,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16289777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superheroresin/pseuds/superheroresin
Summary: As a conservator of rare oil paintings for The Met, Steve Rogers thinks of himself part scientist, part archaeologist, but hardly an artist in his own right. Only when he’s faced with the daunting task of restoring a frozen painting from a recently unearthed Nazi art hoard does he start to feel his passion for the craft return. Before he has a chance to understand what that means, Steve is transported to the 1940’s, where he meets both The Winter Soldier himself, and his own destiny.





	1. Exposed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SulaMoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SulaMoon/gifts), [Cryo_Bucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryo_Bucky/gifts).



> This work was created for the 2018 Captain America Big Bang, with digital art by https://cryo-bucky.tumblr.com/ and traditional illustration by https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/
> 
> Special thanks to Sno and Queenie, who tag-team beta read this fic. I couldn't possibly have the courage to share my word garbage without your expert guidance. Thank you so much for your help and encouragement. I hope I can make you proud!

**New York Times - ART & DESIGN SECTION**

_Secrets of Nazi Art Rescue Continue as Long Lost Vault Yields Frozen Treasure By SHARON CARTER_

**October 6, 2016**

> Within days after it was discovered that an 85-year-old man had hoarded hundreds of artworks collected by his mentor during the Nazi era in an unmarked Siberian bunker, the world gasped at the prospect of rediscovering long-lost treasures.
> 
> This week, two months after the discovery of the bunker inherited by Aleksander Lukin, the vault was finally opened. Past seismic activity had damaged the structure, which delayed the excavation.
> 
> Once the three foot thick door was removed, though, workers were met with shocking conditions. It was quickly discovered that while the inner chamber remained structurally intact, a breach in the antiquated ventilation system had allowed snowmelt to flood the vault. Over time the underground facility had turned into a giant freezer, trapping the contents in solid ice for decades.
> 
> The collection contains over 500 items, including not only paintings, sculptures, sketches, and drawings but also ledgers and other documentation, most of which will not be disclosed until a full investigation on the provenance of the pieces has been concluded.
> 
> Most of the finest works in the collection were acquired by the late Mr. Lukin’s mentor, Vasily Karpov, an art dealer who began smuggling art out of Nazi Germany in 1938. Among other accolades, Karpov was also one of the original founders of Shield’s, the world-renowned auction house based out of New York. Just as Shield’s is known for conservation efforts, Karpov’s efforts mostly focused on rescuing art that had been dubbed ‘degenerate’ by the National Socialist party, and brokered deals for Jewish families attempting to exchange their collections for passage out of Nazi occupied territory. While Karpov’s motives are scrutinized by some historians as war profiteering, Karpov bypassed checkpoints by requiring the first party owners of the work to travel with it. This established an art-fueled underground railroad that allowed many Jewish families to escape persecution and they themselves considered the man a hero.
> 
> Lukin left his possessions, including the now infamous art hoard, to Shield’s, and a number of their top art historians were on site to assess the finding. Not all were disappointed in what they uncovered.
> 
> “In a way this could be a blessing,” said Philip Coulson, long time art historian for Shield’s. “Despite the level of damage and decay caused from exposure to the elements, we’ll still be able to identify much of what’s been stored here. Even if we can’t salvage anything, what we’re most excited for are some answers.”
> 
> There is evidence that the vault may contain works by Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Fabergé, Otto Dix, and other masters, though only one piece in the collection has been identified to the press, and is perhaps the most mysterious. The single portrait was recovered from the vault while keeping it encased in ice in an effort to protect it from succumbing to rapid decay. Coulson identified the subject as a lone American soldier from the Second World War, artist is unknown.
> 
> The rest of the hoard, according to Alexander Pierce, Chairman of Shield’s, will remain on site as they are carefully excavated from their frigid prison.
> 
> “I know this sounds like a disaster,” said Pierce. “We are doing all we can to safely relocate the rest of the collection and identify more that may be somewhere in one of Lukin’s many properties and holdings. Later in life, the man became fairly eccentric. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found some kind of message that he left behind.”
> 
> Whether or not this one, frozen painting was left as some clue leading to the rest of the collection or simply abandoned due to relatively unremarkable provenance has yet to be determined.
> 
> The single recovered painting has been dubbed _The Winter Soldier_ due to the condition it was found in. It will be transported to a world-class restoration department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in hopes that the painting can be salvaged.
> 
> For now the mystery of the Lukin art hoard will continue to baffle the art world and historians alike, until _The Winter Soldier_ can tell his own story.
> 
> **About Shield’s**
> 
> Shield’s, the world's leading art business, had global auction, private, and digital sales in first half of 2016 that totalled £2.35 billion / $3 billion. Shield’s is a name and place that speaks of extraordinary art, unparalleled service and expertise, as well as international glamour. Shield’s offers around 350 auctions annually in over 80 categories, including all areas of fine and decorative arts, jewellery, photographs, collectibles, wine, and more. Prices range from $200 to over $100 million. Shield’s also has a long and successful history conducting private sales for its clients in all categories, with emphasis on Post-War & Contemporary, Impressionist & Modern, Old Masters, and Jewellery. With an origin in protecting cultural property throughout political, social, and environmental turmoil, Shield’s is the very icon of art conservation the world over.
> 
> Alongside regular sales online, Shield’s has a global presence in 46 countries, with 10 salerooms around the world in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai, Zürich, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.

###

“I’m telling you, Peg,” Steve says, unmoved. “It’s a forgery.”

Peggy drops the file on her tidy desk, Steve’s meticulously detailed notes on the Bouguereau slapping the polished wood with a distinct sound of managerial frustration that Peggy usually holds back with him.

“A forgery?” Peggy repeats, only partially curious. “Do you know that piece was already appraised decades ago? And it was inherited, never sold as an authentic Bouguereau.”

Steve takes in a breath, anxiously watching her pick at the printouts of his findings like a pile of dirty socks. He’s been trying to be better, more patient, but the pause only seems to fill his head with more steam and he tumbles ahead despite himself. “So there’s obvious oxidation around the edges of the stretchers, the linen’s in good shape but there’s a little rot developing where the stretchers have gone soft from old age. I did an alcohol fume test but it was hard as a rock.”

“I’m not hearing anything that shouts ‘forgery’ so far,” Peggy patiently reasons, spreading a few of the lab notes out in front of her. “Ultraviolet, infrared… I see it even passed autoradiography scans. You must have put in some overtime to run that test over the weekend…” Steve senses the question there, but also the judgement. The sudden dip in her tone isn’t quite disapproving, but certainly unhappy. “How were the tacks on the back? And the leather pads?”

“I did it on my own time,” Steve confesses, just to get the question of overtime pay out of the way. “Tacks are rusty, like you’d expect from a turn of the century painting, and it passed standard x-ray analysis. But then I went ahead and put it through the new synchrotron x-ray bed we got from Delft University...” Steve goes through this part quickly when Peggy’s eyebrows shoot up. Technically he is supposed to get formal approval before using the new Dutch tool to conduct the relatively experimental (and costly) fluorescence mapping. “ -And found a layer under the sizing, with trace elements of Hg and Sb in red and light tones. You can see I did an approximate color reconstruction of those tones and found a completely anachronistic painting underneath. Next page, there,” he adds, as she shuffles through the paper.

Peggy looks at the evidence, right there in black and white, of a Coca-cola bottle gripped tightly in a straining fist. Obviously not a typical subject for a French artist in the 1880’s. “So whomever copied the original Bouguereau didn’t want to obliterate their own masterpiece before taking advantage of the antique canvas,” Peggy smirks, shakes her head. “Typical artist pride.”

Even though there isn’t much to Steve’s narrow chest, he puffs it out indignantly and crosses his arms tightly with a huff. “ _Forger_ pride.”

Peggy gives him a sharp look. “And as usual, you’re not listening,” she insists, leveling a hard look his way with her dark, brown eyes. “Just because it’s a copy doesn’t mean it’s a _forgery_. There’s a distinct difference.”

“Maybe in the eyes of the law. Not in the eyes of–” Steve stops, hand halfway to his file. “Or… does The Met already know?”

In this case ‘The Met’ refers to Director Fury, Chairman and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Peggy’s direct superior. As the head of the Department of Restoration and Conservation, surely she would have let Fury know there was a forged masterpiece sitting in The Met’s very own lab? Steve takes a seat, because of course she did, and that meant the museum was fine with investing significant resources in propping up a lie that puts their reputation on the line.

Great. Happy Monday.

Peggy sighs. “Look, I know you’ve only been at this for a couple months...” That’s her very British way of reminding Steve that he’s young—likely the youngest member of The Met’s staff outside of the fellowship interns—but Steve can already tell there’s more to it than that. Even though he still feels new in the professional art world, he’d learned very quickly how often politics come into play. “We have a beautiful painting downstairs. A beautiful painting with a beautiful history as part of a private collection. Monsieur La Rochelle brought it here of his own good faith that we could help restore it, and that’s what we should do. He may already know the painting was created by some hand other than that of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It’s not our obligation to humiliate him.”

“It’s our obligation to tell the truth,” Steve says, because it should be as straightforward as that. Even though he knows he’s losing this fight, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t go down swinging. “I guess we already cashed Monsieur La Rochelle’s check, though.”

“I want to see a restoration plan in my inbox by end of day,” Peggy orders sharply in response, and who is Steve kidding? Of course he’d already lost this fight the moment he walked in the door.

“And if the public finds out The Met is restoring forgeries?” Steve asks, collecting his notes. There isn’t any point to taking them, he’s going to have to throw them in the shredder as soon as he gets back to his lab, but he needs something to look at while the blood in his face heats.

“We’ll have that discussion with Monsieur La Rochelle,” Peggy assures him in a softer tone. She could always see straight through him, and hiding his face would do nothing to hide his embarrassment. “We just have to be careful about it when we walk him through your restoration plan.”

Despite Peggy’s assurance, it all still stinks like a cover up, but he swallows any obnoxious response before it can bubble out. Steve is so hung up on the politics of the decision that he nearly marches out the door before absorbing the restoration plan deadline.

“End of day?” he asks, and touches his hearing aid in a nervous habit. He heard her just fine, but usually he’s given at least two days for a full restoration plan. Is this his punishment for wasting the weekend researching his forged Bouguereau? Or using the Delft x-ray without permission? But Peggy shrugs with a smile, the tension between them already waning.

“We’ve got a tight deadline on our next restoration,” she tells him, a sly little smile hinting that there’s more to it than that. Steve flicks through his mental catalogue of work lined up for his lab, trying to predict which one is getting rush priority. The Chegall is still in transport, the Gerome painting on hold while the owners decided where they wanted to source the new stretchers from, the Vermeer is going back to Amsterdam tomorrow...

“Something new?” Steve asks, doing the math.

“Been reading the news lately?” Peggy pushes a copy of the New York Times across her polished desk towards him, folded into a tight rectangle to frame a particular headline in the Arts & Design section.

Steve pulls the paper towards him, feels the soft give of newsprint under his overlarge, calloused fingers, then looks up so quickly that he has to adjust his glasses. “The Lukin vault?”

Peggy nods.

“But they’ve only taken one piece out of Russia so far.”

Another nod.

Steve considers the information, trying to recall why he never gave much thought to the possibility of getting his hands on the lost art. “Doesn’t it belong to Shield’s or something already? I read there was some kind of historical relationship that gave them everything.”

“I spoke to Alexander Pierce myself,” Peggy says with a touch of pride. “He’s transferring the painting here tomorrow.”

Steve can hardly believe it. “Don’t one of the more senior restorers want to work with it? And Shield’s probably has an army of restorers they could hire.”

“Oh, Steve, don’t be so modest,” Peggy says with a proud grin. “Your combined background in conservation and restoration of oils make you the ideal candidate to work on it. Besides, Shield’s is facing so much scrutiny from both the United States and Russian governments they are eager to have such a prestigious institution like The Met work on it, rather than hide it away in some private lab.”

Steve had almost felt the swell of pride before Peggy had got to the political angle yet again, but the sting of it is significantly soothed by the opportunity itself. Steve’s already fantasizing about what such a painting might look like after spending seventy-five years frozen in ice. He glances up again, realizing Peggy had continued while he’d spaced out, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed.

They go on to discuss the particulars of the project, the special cold storage tents they will temporarily set up on the lawn, the various temp staff that will be on loan from Shield’s to assist Steve in handling the work, and their overall time table. She also tells him she’ll take care of the situation with Monsieur La Rochelle to give Steve time to focus on this project.

“I want you one hundred percent focused on how we’re going to crack that one,” she says, letting him get back to work.

 _Carefully_ , Steve immediately thinks, staring down at the newsprint, repeating in his mind everything he knows about the mysterious Nazi treasure hoard kept in a Siberian vault that had been lost, forgotten, flooded. The only piece that the Russians hadn’t immediately locked down in probate when they’d finally opened it up was a single painting, oil on canvas, artist unknown, and frozen solid in a block of ice.

 _The Winter Soldier_ himself will be in Steve’s very own lab, one of the toughest restoration projects he could imagine. Steve skims the article, reading again about the conservators on site keeping it frozen for now. His fingers twitch at the thought of how he could even get started with such a monumental effort.

Very, _very_ carefully.

“Oh, and Steve,” Peggy says, calling him back down to earth. “What made you even think to test the Bouguereau in the first place?”

Steve blinks, already having forgotten about the painting he’s supposed to be working on for the rest of the day. “Lines of grease on the back,” he explains simply. “When they baked the painting to set the layers of glaze, they didn’t use a clean oven rack.”

Peggy snorts, and shakes her head. “Artists,” she judges. Steve inclines his head towards her, as if to say, _what can you expect?_

By the time Steve gets back downstairs, he’s already thought of a dozen complications with thawing an oil painting based on whatever the artist used to seal the painting alone. If it was painted within the decade of the second World War, which the Times article indicates, then it likely isn’t varnished, since varnish itself had been rationed at the time. After the war, it’d tragically fell out of favor just as a matter of taste. He gets it, he really does, that modern artists prefer the natural beauty of the chromatic pigments to stand on their own without the Photoshop gaussian-blur filter equivalent of the traditional art world coating their finished compositions.

Still, that hard, protective layer certainly makes Steve’s job as a conservator _and_ restorer a hell of a lot easier. Non-varnished paintings are a pain to work on, doubly so if the artists who’d created them are still alive and sending furious emails to one’s boss about ‘butchered’ masterpieces.

Maybe Alexander Pierce knows more than what was reported to the papers? If Lukin—or the original collector, Karpov—was known for buying from specific artists, that could narrow down what kind of booby traps he should watch out for. A European artist attempting to recreate a 19th century technique may have even used copal varnish, which will disintegrate if Steve uses mineral spirits to evenly thaw the ice. On the other hand, mineral spirits might be the easiest way to thaw it if _The Winter Soldier_ ’s artist had used the varnish mixed with standoil that was more popular in the 20th century. Then again, maybe simple saline will work—unless of course the painting isn’t varnished at all, in which case he may as well use a sandblaster.

Steve stops at the bottom of the stairs to catch his breath, asthma threatening him with a tickle against the bottom of his lungs, sharp like the point of a knife. He takes another look at the newspaper from Peggy’s office while he breathes deep to dislodge it. They specifically said the subject of _Winter_ was an American soldier, which suddenly strikes Steve as out of place in a Russian art hoard as lines of pizza grease are on the back of a Bouguereau.

 

* * *

Incredible artwork of  _The Winter Soldier_  frozen in ice, by [Cryo-Bucky](https://cryo-bucky.tumblr.com/)! [Click for full size]

[ ](http://fs5.directupload.net/images/181014/scr2yuf6.jpg)

 


	2. A Matter of Pride

Steve stares at the Bouguereau forgery, which he’s re-named _Crown II_ from its original title, _Parure des Champs._ The English name, _Crown of Flowers_. The subjects are from a series Bouguereau painted in the 1880’s, featuring the same pair of young girls in provincial simplicity. Barefoot, one of the girls is older with dark hair, the other younger, with light. In _Crown II_ , the younger stands in front of her brunette sister, blue skirt holding up a collection of red, yellow and cobalt blooms. The older sister carefully drapes a narrow band of flowers over the top of the little sister’s golden head, the same variety as the flowers spilling out of the blonde girl’s pure blue skirt. The older sister looks to her sibling with an expectant smile, proud, but the little sister looks none too pleased about her coronation, glaring stoically at the viewer. Bouguereau’s young girls always look as if they reluctantly teeter over the edge towards more complex adult emotions, an example of the brilliance of his work.

From a technical perspective, the forger did everything right. The girls stand on vibrant green grass with delicate, pink feet. The thick textile of their skirts drape with believable weight that a master like Bouguereau knows how to get from his oils. The glazing must have taken days, maybe even weeks, for the forger to carefully apply and bake layer after layer. 

All that effort, ruined by leaving a corporate monstrosity beneath it. Who does this guy think he is, Andy Warhol? Probably some wannabe who thinks the art world owes them something, someone whose derivative work had gone unappreciated, and so they’d secretly snuck their own painting beneath a picture someone had actually wanted. Steve viciously decides that whomever it is should consider a future in designing ads for bus shelters and leave oil painting to the professionals. He huffs out a breath that knocks his limp bangs away from in front of his eyes.

A _forgery_. How did that even make it through their front door? Peggy can argue semantics all she likes, but no one goes through the trouble of stripping a vintage canvas just to create an innocent copy. The only thing genuine about this painting is whatever canvas that was used, stripped of its original oils in order to fool art historians, authenticators, and rich, old collectors like Monsieur La Rochelle alike. Steve’s pride in his work is nothing more than collateral damage. 

Then again, pride is something that should be reserved for artists in their studios, not a restorer in his lab. Steve’s a professional, and he still has a job to do. He exhales more slowly, reconsidering the work in front of him, cocks his head to one side, and remembers his end of day deadline. He better get started.

The first thing that catches his eye is the most obvious, and the reason La Rochelle had contacted The Met’s restoration team to begin with. A three inch tear near the bottom right corner cuts through each and every layer of paint after a sloppy attempt to reframe the piece had damaged the linen. Steve keeps scanning, and finds an unnatural stippled pattern in the grey blue sky of the upper left corner, as if some varnish-eating caterpillar got ahold of it. Monsieur La Rochelle had no idea where that particular decay came from, but Steve clicks his tongue when he recognizes the effects of Windex left by overzealous cleaning staff.

Before he’d known it was a forgery, Steve hadn’t decided whether he’d keep that information to himself. He would have wanted to warn La Rochelle to keep the painting away from mirrors or other fixtures that get regularly wiped down, avoiding any accidental overspray, but had worried that’d probably get some poor housekeeper fired. He tends to stick his foot in his mouth when he insists on doing the right thing, and usually he’s okay with that as long as it’s his _own_ life getting messed up in the process.

Now that he knows the painting is fake, he’ll sleep better knowing he won’t have to sacrifice someone’s job for its safety. Maybe the relief he feels is a bit petty, but he’ll count it as a victory nonetheless.

Steve pulls up his work stool, climbs aboard it with an extra hop to clear its height, and slouches forward while adjusting the gray binocular-like magnifiers over his head. Even after a superficial inspection, Steve wants to get a closer look at the painting’s craquelure and the state of its stretchers. 

Despite the detergent damage, the rest of the varnish has yellowed with “age”. In reality, the effect of that dark, slightly yellow sign of age was probably achieved with a mixture of India ink washed over the final layer after the work had finished it’s multiple rounds in the oven. Steve will have no problem stripping the varnish, touching up any losses to the paint itself, and re-sealing the work with a few fresh layers of low molecular weight varnish. The whole painting will be brighter after, looking as fresh and new as it actually is.

He jots down notes for the possible combinations, plus the adhesives and pigments he’d pick for the retouching, in his tattered lab notebook. No sense in using an expensive laptop when it’s bound to get splashed with everything from oil paint to acetone. After he’s satisfied with his materials list, he tosses the lab notebook back to his workbench, then frowns at the opposite corner from the Windex damage. Dealing with that tear is going to be a whole other issue altogether.

Steve switches out his head mounted magnifiers for one on a wheeled stand, backlit with an adjustable swing arm, and takes his time to inspect the torn linen with ceramic forceps. 

“Oh shit, what did they do to you?” Steve mumbles, when he realizes that he’s looking at a damaged patch and not that of the original canvas. Whatever original work the forger strip-mined for the period-accurate canvas seems to have come with a hole in it, but rather than finding another work of the right size and age, they’d patched the canvas and attempted to paint over it. Only, they’d used a gesso patch (appropriate for the time period of the Bouguereau, Steve will give them that much) which doesn’t set at the same temperature as the rest of the oil when it bakes. Under magnification, Steve spots all the cracks and crumbling material beneath the layers of paint, a result of the fresh tear and the gesso desiccating after being heated too quickly in an oven. It’s no wonder it’d torn when La Rochelle tried to have it reframed. 

What a mess. 

Steve retrieves his notebook, and chews his lip while he jots down more thoughts. A mylar liner will probably be the best option to fix the tear itself, given the decay of the threads and chipped oil layers, but he should actually redo the entire patched area—a three inch by two inch rectangle—for it to retain the same visual quality as the un-retouched areas of the painting. It will be a time consuming process, but that patch has got to go. Adding a fresh backing to the entire piece will be the only way to repair a tear that long that won’t cause a bulge in the painting later on down the line. After a touch up, the damage might not even be visible to the naked eye anymore. 

Steve goes ahead and mounts it flat under his electronic microscope just to make sure, grabbing a few screenshots off his monitor to add to _Crown II_ ’s official restoration plan. It may be a forgery, but Steve isn’t capable of skimping on the details, since the details are where conservators and restorers live. 

All in all, this restoration should take about three weeks, give or take a day for incidentals. Without the lab’s state of the art humidity controlled environment, it would have been several days more just to allow the layers of fresh paint, varnish, glue and wax to properly dry, step by step, but The Met is, well, The Met. Steve’s lab is wide open, with a bench lining one whole side and cabinets of supplies on the other. The back of the room is where works can be stored vertically in rows of narrow shelves. Other large pieces of equipment for heat pressing, microscopic examination, x-rays and more are gathered at the center, like a mad scientist’s collection of esoteric dining tables. A large orange ventilation hose hangs from the ceiling so that Steve himself doesn’t choke on the fumes of his profession.

A wall of tempered glass separates him from the hallway outside, and a maglock door coded to Steve’s biometrics is locked at all times. There are no exterior windows, and even though that gives the lab a cavelike feel, Steve wouldn’t have it any other way. All the security measures protect the rare works always cycling through his space, and the last thing he would risk is UV damage on the precious pieces of history.

Steve yawns, wondering what time it is as he stretches out a kink in his spine. The movement triggers the overhead lights to come back on, and after almost falling off his work stool in surprise, he blinks up at them with a vengeful glare. He’s been sitting here all day and—holy _hell_ , well into the evening—without moving a muscle, but it was still rude of the motion sensors to assume that no one was here at all. Getting lost in a painting isn’t exactly unheard of, and even if Steve could probably be more professional when it comes to managing his schedule, the visual examination (also known as ‘staring’) is an important part of conservation. 

The work stool scrapes across the cement floor as Steve hops back down, staggers when his numb hips lock up, and takes an extra half a minute to stretch again. For a guy with arguably zero muscle mass, he sure manages to get stiff in all the wrong places when he works.

Steve puts his equipment aside, re-drapes _Crown II,_ and shoves a stack of binders over to find his wandering laptop. It’s already long past Peggy’s hard deadline, but he takes another hour to transcribe his handwritten notes and finalize the restoration plan anyway. He even takes the time to add an alternative, less costly option to the mylar liner, just in case the owner has a change of heart about spending that much on a reproduction. In this case, transferring the piece to a less experienced restorer would be best, though technically Steve is the most junior member of the permanent staff. He might actually be stuck with _Crown II_ for the foreseeable future.

Steve sends his plan off to Peggy’s inbox, better late than never, and gives the draped painting one more hard look before he slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and tags out of his lab. Even though he’s missed the worst of rush hour, it’s still a long subway ride back to Brooklyn.

Instead of taking the Fifth Avenue station, Steve makes the walk through the park towards Central Park West. It’s dark and a frigid wind kicks up the early November snow, but he just tucks deeper into his thick scarf and pinches his ears between his narrow shoulders. This is always the part of the evening that he considers his cool down routine, making his way past the Great Lawn, Delacorte Theater, then breaking from the lush line of trees and tourists to catch the C from the subway entrance at the Natural History Museum. 

The walk is short, about ten minutes if he’s willing to risk an asthma attack, but it always helps put his day in perspective. Peggy is a great boss, savvy with the business side of the art world and an extremely talented artist in her own right. Steve respects her for it, but that’s also likely the reason they tend to butt heads, since Steve has never made the leap himself from restorer to artist. She sees emotion in art that he reads only in technical terms, and that emotional connection is required for an artist to be successful. Steve jams his fists further into his jacket pockets, because suddenly he’s reminded that those emotional connections are required for successful relationships too. 

According to Peggy, that’s why he’s still single, but he doesn’t think she really means that when she teases him about it. It’s just her way of trying to encourage him to be a bit more adventurous. Spontaneous. Steve exhales into his scarf, warming the cold tip of his nose with his own breath, and pushes that thought away. He doesn’t really need any extra complications in his life right now anyway.

Peggy’s core discipline is in sculpture, shaping beautiful men and boys out of everything from stone to clay to what she calls an ‘experimental’ phase where she’d used ripped up copies of the United States constitution as paper mache. She’s worked in restoration for the past ten years, and even though she’s starting to show a bit of gray in her chestnut curls, has never given any indication that she’d ever slow down as an artist or her ambitions at The Met. Steve only hopes his career is half as successful by the time he’s in his forties.

Despite knowing her personal ambitions, Steve trusts Peggy with his fledgeling career without question. He’ll take her lead on the Bouguereau copy (starting by thinking of it as a ‘copy’ and not a ‘forgery,’), let her sort out what to do with Monsieur La Rochelle, and stop worrying about that stupid Coke bottle hiding beneath the classic.

Decision made, Steve feels better as he trots down the steps to the subway, and finally lets himself off the hook when he manages to score a window seat on a relatively quiet train car. His headphones can only drone out so much drunken screaming and crying babies before he has to turn his hearing aids off for some peace and quiet, so he looks forward to the easy evening commute. The hour-long ride goes smoothly, and he spends most of it on his phone, just like everyone else passing from Manhattan to Brooklyn. He reads up on the Lukin art hoard, finds articles that explore theories about the fate of the collection from art historians to political conspiracy theorists, and even a few politicians have started to feebly argue who _Winter_ rightfully belongs to. 

Amazing what happens on social media when you throw the phrase “Nazi Art” into a headline. It’s a good thing that Shield’s has ownership of Lukin’s estate, considering where it all came from. 

Steve glances up from his phone to check what stop he’s at—still another ten minutes before he has to really start paying attention—then shoves it into the pocket of his jeans so that he can dig the New York Times article out of his bag. He skims the newsprint for the third or fourth time, before he lands on the byline and wonders if it’s just a coincidence that it was written by Sharon Carter. Has Peggy ever mentioned a sister? He pulls out his phone again, and quickly discovers more articles from the same Sharon Carter. She’s been following Shield’s closely for several years, and writes about them often, and after reading through several of her pieces Steve detects a cynical edge to her coverage of the influential art house. Apparently, Steve’s not the only one that could be called a ‘dog with a bone’ when he sinks his teeth into a nice juicy mystery.

Now that he’s found the Lukin Vault story online, he also finds a high resolution image from the article, and spreads his fingers apart to zoom in for a closer look. In it a man in bulky winter gear hoists a massive block of ice out of a poorly lit room. The caption reads: **Phil Coulson, Shield’s onsite art historian, assists in the removal of _The Winter Soldier_ from his icy prison.**

There’s absolutely no discernable detail in the frosty chunk, not even a visible frame. Steve wonders how Coulson identified an American soldier’s uniform through all that frozen sediment, then wonders again how an American soldier managed to get his portrait painted and stowed away in a Russian vault for seventy-five years…

Steve’s head shoots up when he hears the doors slide shut, then launches to his feet, despite the fact that he’s obviously too late. He groans as he watches his stop march past the window, leaving his own neighborhood behind as the train continues on.

“Well, fuck.”


	3. Trapped in Ice

Steve had known that the painting would be transported to The Met on ice, that they’d set up cold storage outside, but hadn’t realized it would come fully equipped with it’s very own, state of art, temperature controlled lab. Large, unmarked trucks drive right onto the lawn on the North side of the building off of East 84th Street and over a small offshoot meant for golf carts and joggers. Work crews in black coveralls with the Shield’s logo emblazoned in bright silver across their backs assemble the tents, compressors and equipment while Steve watches from inside the Temple of Dendur exhibit. It is already snowing outside, so the tent itself must be set to well below zero degrees, and Steve will have to get used to a whole new meaning for the phrase ‘cold storage.’

By noon, the white tents are standing on their own, two separate structures visible from Steve’s vantage point. Museum visitors clump up near the windows, distracted from their stroll through the reconstructed Egyptian architecture by the commotion outside, but quickly move on when they realize there isn’t much to see from up here. Steve barely registers their disappointment. His excitement has already turned into a twisted knot of anxiety in his belly, and he practically gnaws on his thumbnail as he watches the men work below.

“I had to hunt you down on the security cameras, I’ll have you know,” Peggy says, coming to a stop behind him. Steve knew she was approaching, could identify her high heels clicking across the stone floor, echoing against the stalks of papyrus framing the temple’s inner chamber. She’s taller than him—not much of a feat considering he’s probably shorter than the average seventh grader—and she always seems to own every room she walks into. “I just got off the phone with Shield’s. The painting is coming off the truck now, if you want to go down and see.” 

It’s exactly the news he’s been waiting for, but he has one last piece of unfinished business before he can lose himself entirely in a new project. “You could have told me sooner that La Rochelle is traveling,” Steve says, ignoring her dangling bait for now. “He won’t be able to review that restoration plan for months.” 

Peggy doesn’t seem impressed by his snippy mood. “Is that why you’re up here, pouting?”

Steve shoots her a glare but doesn’t answer. He got her email during his morning commute thanking him for the good work, and letting him know _Crown II_ is going into storage for the foreseeable future. 

“Oh please,” she continues, giving his pointy elbow a good natured nudge. “Tell me you didn’t stay up all night researching our frozen friend rather than nineteenth century French masters?”

Steve snorts, because of course that’s exactly what he’d done. There’s no way he could have focused on _Crown II_ after today, but if Peggy had come right out and told him that yesterday he would have denied it vehemently, then forgotten all about it as soon as these trucks pulled up. “So is Sharon Carter a relation of yours or what?”

“My niece,” Peggy says with a grin. “My brother’s brilliant daughter. And I assume an ‘I told you so’ isn’t necessary.” 

Steve drops his head in defeat. His eyes are bleary and sore, his neck is killing him, and he’d probably drank his body weight in caffeine from the staff lounge downstairs. He’d been up until two in the morning researching Lukin, Shield’s, and Karpov, as well as brushing up on the history of art in wartime. He’d also found out there’s a military operated research center in Saratoga Springs, which might come in handy depending on what this supposedly American soldier winds up looking like. Maybe Steve could even find out who _The Winter Soldier_ was modeled after, or learn more about the painting itself based off his uniform. 

It’s all thrilling, the best part of his job, but he might have gotten a bit carried away chasing that white rabbit into Wikipedia wonderland. “I might need to hear it, just to make sure it sinks in.”

“I told you so.”

“Don’t know what I’d do without you, Peg.”

“Let’s go down and have a look,” she says, bouncing on her toes with excitement. Steve laughs, wondering how someone twenty years his senior can always seem to have twice as much energy as he does, and follows her outside.

That same youthful exuberance is a little overwhelming from Phil Coulson, Shield’s own art historian, who arrived along with _The Winter Soldier._ Before they could properly introduce themselves, Coulson pounces. All energetic handshakes and permanent smiles, crackling with excitement over everything and everyone, practically fawning over Peggy and her pedigree. Peggy is gracious and professional, though Steve knows her well enough to tell she’s put on guard by the attention. At first Steve thought the man might be trying to flirt in an awkward stalkerish sort of way, until Coulson turns his attention his way. 

“Steve Rogers,” Coulson says, covering Steve’s hand between both of his and pumps his arms up and down exactly three times. “Honor to meet a fellow Pratt laureate! I have to say, when the Chairman told us he was granting the restoration project to The Met I was pretty skeptical. Then I read up on your new silicone lining technique that won you Pratt’s Early Career Award and figured _Winter_ was in good hands.”

Steve wishes he brought his scarf with him into the tent, then he’d have a place to hide his burning cheeks. Instead, he settles on mumbling something like a thanks, then tries to figure out a way to extract his hand without breaking any acceptable social contracts.

“Mr. Coulson,” Peggy cuts in, rescuing Steve like the awesome boss she is. “It’s a bit chilly in here and I’m sure we’re all eager to get started. When do you suppose Chairman Pierce will arrive?”

“Oh, right,” Coulson blurts out, coming back down to earth to realize he’s been shaking Steve’s hand for far too long and releases it. “Sorry, but Alex won’t make the trip out to New York for a while. He’s in DC, working with the State Department, actually.” 

Peggy blinks—probably taken off guard by hearing one of the richest men in the world referred to as ‘Alex’—before she smoothly continues. “Is he? I hope everything’s alright. I know there was some conflict with how the Lukin estate has been distributed.” 

“It’s the Russians’ last ditch effort to take _Winter_ back,” Coulson says, which sounds ominous, but he shrugs like it’s no big deal. He has an even way of speaking that sounds like it would take a nuclear strike for him to consider something a big deal. “They claim some American spy lead Shield’s to the vault, so now they’re trying to bury a simple business transaction with accusations of international espionage. The rest of the work hasn’t left Russian soil, so all that is for just this one painting.”

“And several million dollars worth of property, from what I understand,” Peggy adds with a thoughtful nod. “Russia hasn’t been known to be very generous when it comes to surrendering property to American private interests.”

“Right, and if they secure ownership of _Winter_ , then the next step would be to get the rest of the collection.” Coulson nods succinctly. “The chairman will do everything in his power to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Steve glances over at Peggy while Coulson is speaking, and sees her stiffen slightly at the words. He knows her well enough to see something has managed to sneak around her unshakable confidence and tries to think of something to say to move them away from the topic. He’s terrible at this sort of thing, though, manipulating conversations and maneuvering awkward social situations. Why can’t they just move on already? 

“Speaking of _Winter_?” Steve manages, shoving his fists further into his jacket pockets and hoping it doesn’t come out too impatiently. They’re still in a small entryway of the main pop up tent, white polyvinyl walls bright in the winter sunlight. It’s even colder in here than it is outside, and Steve glances over to the heavy plastic curtains that lead beyond, trying to physically move them along with his eyes.

Luckily, Coulson takes the hint, and they follow him through the curtain into the literal freezer. It’s loud in this part of the tent, with the air compressor right outside pumping in frigid air, and the tips of Steve’s ears start to burn in the cold. There’s equipment lining all sides, from large basins, sinks, cabinets, tools, lifts, and a few tall, gray cylinders marked LN2— _Liquid Nitrogen_ —and a thick, white layer of frigid mist swirls around their feet as they move further inside. In the very center of the room is a metal table with a slab of ice placed atop it, like the world’s most uncomfortable mattress. 

Steve blinks, and even his eyes hurt, like his tears want to freeze. There’s a faint smell of ammonia in the air, used to artificially harden ice, and his lungs already ache with it. When he gusts out his next breath, it comes with a white cloud. “Wow.” 

“Sorry about the working conditions.” Coulson rubs his gloved hands together, shivering in the brisk air even under all his layers. “The temperature in here has to be below freezing–” 

“Of course,” Steve interrupts without realizing it, already drifting away from Peggy and Coulson as the block of ice draws him in. “Oil paint has a lower freezing point than water.” 

They continue their own conversation after that, but Steve doesn’t care about Alexander Pierce and the politics of the discovery. It’s easy to tune them out, just like subway noise, and focus on the forensic mystery waiting for him on the operating table. He reaches out his bare hand towards the surface of _Winter_ ’sicy prison, where it breathes out a fine, steady stream of vapor, then jerks away, baffled by his moment of stupidity. The top layer is made up of sparkling frost, and white crystals have formed along the joint of the table where moisture froze the two together. This ice is easily cold enough to take off a layer of skin if he touches it with his bare hands. 

“Mr. Coulson? Sorry—” Steve cuts himself off when he realizes he’s broken into their conversation again, but Coulson motions for him to continue. “What are these for?” The ice block is belted with wide nylon straps, heavy duty D-rings looped on each pass. “They look like… restraints?” 

Coulson steps away from Peggy, who looks on with her own mix of curiosity and impatience. “Ah, just in case you have to move him,” Coulson explains, and points to the mechanical swing arms, waiting on standby off to the sides of the tent. “He weighs a good two hundred pounds right now. The tabletop is also removable. See the little anchors there? And the bottom is perforated, so it can be lowered into a bath or drained. Shield’s wanted to make sure you had options. I, uh, designed it myself, actually.”

Steve kneels down to see the bottom of the tabletop, sieved with large round holes. It’s a very elegant set up, and he can’t help nod in approval. “You’ve thought of everything.” 

“We should only be so lucky,” Coulson hedges, clasping his hands modestly in front of himself. “I’ve got petty cash, just in case.”

“Mmm,” Steve mumbles, since he hadn’t exactly been worried about the budget to begin with. Shield’s is willing to pop up an entire mobile lab just to thaw this painting, he’s not really worried they will bawk at the price tag once they see his full restoration plan.

“Speaking of which,” Peggy starts, while Steve walks another slow circle around the table. Maybe Shield’s would loan Steve a car so that he could travel to that military museum. Saratoga Springs is a good three hour road trip from Manhattan. “I believe we have some paperwork to go over. We should all have a hot cup of tea while we’re at it. Steve?”

Without thinking, Steve yanks his jacket sleeve up over his palm and quickly scrubs off a layer of crackling rime from between the criss-crossing nylon belts. The solid ice underneath is perfect aquamarine blue, not like frozen water but like a jewel. He can’t see very well through the inclusions and air bubbles, but the longer he stares through the window he’s created, the more a shape takes form, two dots of light peer up at him from the depths. 

_Eyes._ He’s looking at _eyes._

“...Steve?” Peggy’s voice snaps his attention back up. He’d been leaning so far over that he nearly topples face first onto the table, and instead bangs the bony part of his hip against the stainless steel edge.

Steve coughs when the cold air fights back against his lungs at his sudden gasp of pain. “Shit! Damn! Sorry! Tea sounds great!” Steve backs away from _Winter_ for now, determined to cover as best he can, and follows Coulson and Peggy outside. 

November in New York is almost warm compared to the refrigerated tent, and Steve has to ignore the tightness in his chest that he always gets from jumping between climates too quickly. He’ll need to remember to stuff his inhaler in his pocket when he comes back, which honestly can’t be soon enough. He sits through tea, which turns into lunch, as patiently as he can manage, answers the few questions that drift his way through his nearly impenetrable distraction. 

Once they partially thaw the painting, he’ll have to remind Shield’s they have to switch to a non-ammonia based coolant system. If any of it were to touch the painting, it would act as a solvent on the varnish and possibly even the sizing from behind. Steve goes back to gnawing at his already-nubby thumbnail, considering what kind of damage the stretchers must have already undergone and quickly adds that to the list of things they’ll just start with from scratch. But back to the ammonia— 

“...Mr. Rogers?” 

Who? Oh right, that’s him. Steve blinks up at Coulson after hearing what he first mistook for his father’s name being called. “Right, yes, sorry. What were you saying about the deadline?” 

“The Chairman wants the painting back in hand within two weeks,” Coulson repeats. “For better or worse.”

“Two—” Steve cuts himself off. Only two weeks? He had given himself three to repair a Windex stain and an old patch on a forgery. Who knows what disasters might wait for them once they get _Winter_ out of the ice. “That’s— I mean, there’s no way it can—” 

Coulson nods along with Steve’s baffled attempts to explain himself, then holds up a hand to explain. “Mr. Rogers—”

“Steve.” 

Coulson nods again, accepting the correction. “Steve. The Russian government is doing its damndest to get Lukin’s estate locked into their version of probate. Once that happens, all of Lukin’s property, his buildings and warehouses where the rest of the art might be stored, will be tied up in international courts for years. Alexander Pierce believes this painting might help us track down the rest of it before it’s too late, but in order for us to act on it we need it before the end of the month, when all the assets are seized.” 

“Got it,” Steve says, even though he doesn’t think that makes much sense, and the conversation moves on without him one more time. 

Now. Back to the ammonia…


	4. American After All

Steve settles on a saline bath at a cozy negative-ten-degrees celsius. His plan is to thaw the outer few inches of ice, just to ensure the two hundred pound slab doesn’t crack itself in half when he goes for the much more aggressive zero-degrees celsius shower. Even so, it takes two days in the first bath, with Steve checking every fifteen minutes, dunking it in and out of the water as the saline mixture strips off molecule-thin layers of ice, one after the other. Along the way, the painting’s jewel-toned encasement becomes even glossier, a brilliant shade of aqua, as if the process itself was giving the ice its surreal color, like an easter egg in a cup of marine blue dye.

In order to survive the sub-zero climate in the tent—which everyone just calls the ice box—Steve has to dress in ultra-low temperature thermal gear. His short stature and slim frame is outfitted with such bulky winter clothes that he more closely resembles a penguin than a human being. To add insult to injury, his skinny arms bounce out from his padded sides like a toddler’s as he walks, followed everywhere with swishing marshmallow noises. Luckily, these early stages of defrosting don’t require too much finesse. He couldn’t hold a paintbrush in his puffy gloved fingers if his life depended on it.

For all his initial excitement, Phil Coulson doesn’t wind up sticking around for long, and eventually stops answering Steve’s emails. Instead, Steve gets to use a number of Shield’s burly movers that helped set up the tent as assistants. He suspects they are temp hires, because their scarred faces and buzzcuts don’t really look like they belong at a high end art house. They’re more than likely from some private security firm, even though Shield’s wouldn’t be so rude to suggest The Met’s guards or the additional security measures erected around the tents were inadequate. He’d made an effort to learn their names the first day, but since they all seemed to resort to calling him ‘Hey, kid,’ he just sticks with ‘Brock & Jock.’ 

Brock is tall, beefy and brunet, while Jock is tall, beefy and blond and that’s about the extent of the difference that Steve’s noticed between them. They both have necks like tree trunks and voices like tumbling gravel, the kind of guys that would have picked on Steve in high school and been proud of it. They aren’t exactly rude, but they’re clearly not teddy bears, and Steve doesn’t just think so because they push one of his oldest buttons when they call him ‘kid’, despite being around the same age. 

There is something unsettling about how little curiosity the men have in the work they’re doing, as if they’d put just as much effort into defrosting two hundred pounds of ground beef. Steve looks forward to completing the thaw phase of the project, just so that he can bring the painting inside and away from the two strangers.

On the third day, eating in his lab by himself, some folks from the manuscript conservation department wave at him through the glass in a clear invitation to join them for lunch. He recognizes the oldest among them as Professor Pym, since the man is practically a legend, but can’t place the other two even though he’s seen their faces around since he’d started in his fellowship days. Steve is neck deep in online discourse with a conservator from an Italian agency, discussing the likelihood of ammonia seeping through the back layer of canvas to damage the adhesion of sizing to linen, and waves them off. His laptop dings with the answer he’s been looking for, so he starts the awkward climb back into his penguin suit and heads outside. 

All of this would be so much easier if Alexander Pierce or his representatives at Shield’s would answer his questions about the find, but the man is about as absent as bosses get. If Steve didn’t have to risk the varnish with a standoil thaw that would have made all the difference in the world. He might have been able to shave an entire day off his efforts, but Pierce couldn’t be bothered to send them any additional information on Lukin, Karpov, or the rest of the art hoard.

According to Peggy, her niece didn’t seem to have much luck reaching him either, and she is a New York Times investigative reporter. Steve is pretty much on his own, and has to resort to experimentation and lots and lots of Googling.

“Hey kid,” Brock welcomes, standing up suddenly and likewise, Jock puts his cup of coffee aside, without any evidence that he took a sip. “Perfect timing.” 

There’s a small table and some chairs in the ice box’s anteroom, where Steve sets up his laptop to bang some notes into his report with shaking fingers, gloves held between his teeth to keep them from chattering. This is where Brock & Jock spend the majority of their time when they aren’t hauling around a giant ice cube. Brock holds up a ticking kitchen timer, glares at it, then grins when it gives a satisfying little ding.

“Soup’s up,” Jock says, like he always does when the timer goes off. Steve isn’t even sure if it’s a compulsion or his odd brand of humor, but Jock doesn’t crack a smile when he says it. 

“Perfect,” Steve says, pulling the balaclava over his nose and mouth. He’s got in the habit of putting on his final layers once he’s inside to avoid sweating his way across the museum’s lawn. “Should be the last round before we move him to the chemical shower.”

Brock uses a long hook to break the thin layer of ice that capped the water and test the D-rings, while Jock waits at the mechanical arm’s control panel. Steve stands off to the side and watches, like he always does. There’s a giant aluminum vat next to the stand for _Winter_ ’s table, and early on Brock & Jock had made it clear Steve wasn’t getting anywhere near it. They’d both looked him up and down, grunted something about liability, and that was that. Steve doesn’t mind too much, as long as they do what he says.

The mechanical arm is more like an articulated crane, along with a powerful wench, that connects to the anchors of _Winter_ ’s sieved tabletop. The motor hums to life, the cable pulls taut, and Brock guides the tabletop out of the bath with practiced precision as icy water rushes off its surface and drains back into the tub. 

Brock grunts out a few instructions to Jock, without taking his eyes off the prize. “Bring it around, slower this time. Slower!”

Brock backs out of the way from the swinging metal tabletop and spray of water. Free from another layer of ice, it’s even lighter than it was before it went into the bath, giving the tension of the wench more slack than what Jock was clearly used to. It swings wide, striking Brock in his chest before he steadies it against his full body weight. Steve can feel the bouncy pop up flooring shift as he digs in his heels.

“Got it?” Jock asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” Brock says, with a click of his tongue at the mild inconvenience. If that thing had swung into Steve, it might have decapitated him, but it barely phased Brock’s hard slab of a chest. “Bring ‘im down, now. Same speed.” 

“Got it,” Jock says. His vocabulary isn’t very deep. 

The tabletop latches into place against the frame, and Steve hurries up to it, letting Brock worry about disconnecting the wench and putting away the cables. He’s too excited to wait any longer, now that they’ve gotten so close to the paint layers. He picks up a microfiber cloth, swipes away the layer of cloudy frost that immediately coated the surface when it broke out of the bath, and cracks a smile. 

The ice is now almost as transparent as old, thick glass. Steve can make out a face to go with those eyes he’d seen the very first time he’d met _Winter_ , can see the vague shape of his posture, his uniform. The colors of the painting are mostly elusive, since everything is still coated in the bright blue cast of the ice, but there on his cap is a visible dash of gold, and Steve can barely make out the proud splayed eagle of the United States crest. 

“Coulson was right,” Steve mumbles. He wonders if the man himself ever had any doubt, considering he insisted from the start that _Winter_ was American. One mystery solved. 

Jock makes an unattractive snort. “First time for everything.” 

“What?” Steve blinks, surprised to hear the man utter something that sounds like an opinion. Brock shoots his companion a look, but Jock doesn’t seem phased. 

“The guy’s full of conspiracy theories. Shield’s is into all kinds of weird stuff like, you know, buried treasure ‘n magic maps ‘n voodoo. Indiana Jones type shit.”

Brock hisses at the man to shut up, but Steve rolls his eyes. Coulson is exactly the sort of person who he’d suspect would be a diehard Indiana Jones fanboy. Steve would bet the man poses in the mirror wearing a beat up brown fedora on weekends. “Luckily, the only shit we have to worry about is that ammonia. I need you guys to turn off the compressors now. Actually, bring one of those liquid nitrogen tanks over. Not that one, the one with the handle spray thingie. Yup.”

There’s no room for conversation as Steve sets about the next phase. With the compressors off, the room slowly starts to warm, and the iced over painting gradually begins to sweat. It’s a long, tedious process, but Steve manually removes layer after layer of frost by allowing the ice to soften, refreezing it with a careful dusting of liquid nitrogen, then letting it soften again. For the last phase, he has Brock flip the painting over, since the back has to be dry before the front or they risk the sizing separating from the linen canvas. This reveals that the painting is actually set on an H-stretcher, the four wooden bars that stretch the canvas bisected by a fifth, horizontally across the length of it, forming a perfect H. Steve makes a note that this is further evidence that _Winter_ is European—despite the soldier’s uniform—and not painted in the United States.

He uses diluted ethanol in the last phase, just to accelerate the evaporation, and finally— _finally_ —the painting is free. It’s late, Steve is sweating despite having peeled off his penguin layers hours ago, and even Brock & Jock are breathing hard. The field lights are on, the tent lit both inside and out, and Steve is starting to feel exhaustion creep into his bones. It’s been a long three days. 

“Alright,” Steve says. “Let’s turn him over.” 

Brock & Jock both stand, but by now the two hundred pound ice block has been reduced to a seven pound framed canvas. If it hadn’t been from the habit they formed, Steve would have just turned it over himself.

“Careful, we don’t know how brittle the sizing might be,” Steve says quietly, like a little prayer that everything is still holding fast. Brock & Jock slowly turn the painting over, watching for any ripple in the canvas or creak of a stretcher. The stretchers themselves have nearly rotted away, but luckily the wide, ornate frame holds the painting in place. Steve stands back to take in the fully visible _Winter_ , and his brain immediately cranks into overdrive.

Right away Steve can tell the painting is in bad shape. The varnish is blistered from what looks surprisingly like freezer burn, and likely suffered some losses around the edges. There’s definitely some craqueleur, but unlike the webbed valleys of dried and split varnish, this catches the light in crests, as if the paint’s peaked liked sand dunes instead of dipping like cracked desert earth. It’s a unique form of aging, something Steve isn’t sure he’s seen before, but like the frost-scorched spotting in the varnish, likely caused again from being repeatedly frozen. There is no visible signature. 

Despite it’s condition, it’s obvious that the painting isn’t very old, possibly even painted after World War II. The subject is a young man wearing a dress uniform, the remains of his lit cigarette stuck to the corner of his bottom lip, hat tilted off to one side in a jaunty slant, just like his smile. His jacket is undone, belt hanging open, and he has his hands in his pockets. His tie is loose around his throat. 

Despite the painting’s nickname, the color palette doesn’t say much about winter. They’re all autumnal shades, the red brick of the wall he leans against, the warm, shining brass of his buttons, the rich brown of his uniform. The artist had captured something melancholic in those colors, using tones of decay even while the flesh of his subject stands out in luminescent clarity, more alive than real life. 

The soldier’s mouth is pink, with a touch of white to suggest the artist couldn't ignore how juicy they thought those lips might be.

But then there are those eyes. Piercing chips of blue that leap out of the sepia tones of the image, with darker rings of navy to trap the viewer within. Winter is definitely contained in those eyes, expressed by the bold use of color that would have been completely anachronistic for the time period.

Steve swallows, something in the back of his mind unimpressed by the pathetic cliche of ‘haunting blue eyes,’ but they aren’t what make this beautiful young man so charming. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. The eyes make him look scared, or dangerous, like an animal trying to decide between flight or fight. It doesn’t just make Steve wonder about him, it makes Steve _worry_ about him. With just his second glance, the soldier’s jaunty smile seems over practiced—plastered on for the benefit of everyone else, so they stop asking questions, so they stop looking at him out of the corner of their eye and thinking he’s had it, he’s cracked up, he’s never making it home. This soldier isn’t prepared for the winter that he faces.

Steve has never seen anything like it.

“Hey kid,” someone says, and Steve comes tumbling back into the ice box, startled to see Brock & Jock still standing around. “Can we go now?” 

“What?” Steve blinks owlishly into the too-bright lights around him, reflecting off the tent’s white walls. “Oh, yeah. Sure. Thanks guys.” 

“Alright,” Jock says, and heads for the heavy plastic curtain that leads out of the ice box.

“No, wait!” Steve turns quickly, and flinches when the huge men turn back around with a double dose of irritation. “Sorry. I just— Could we move him to my lab? Now that he’s out of the ice I don’t want the moisture getting into the wood.”

Steve almost stops talking, because he’s lying through his teeth. The wood is about as saturated as it’s going to get. Steve is just impatient to get _The Winter Soldier_ someplace… cozier. It feels wrong to leave him in the ice box overnight now that he’s exposed. 

“Whatever you say,” Brock agrees, unconcerned. They probably get paid serious overtime, and if Steve keeps them too long, well, just another bonus for their paychecks. 

To reduce stress on the stretchers, they leave _The Winter Soldier_ on the removable tabletop, and carry him horizontally through the staff entrance of the museum, like a patient on a gurney. Steve leads them through the maze-like corridors beneath the exhibit halls, past studios and classrooms, and finally badges into his own lab. The overhead lights blink on when they make their way through the door, and Steve rushes to clear everything off his workbench, making room while Brock  & Jock wait with painfully obvious patience as he stacks up papers, binders, books, cases of brushes, paints, and other supplies to relocate them. 

Steve feels giddy, embarrassed and excited like he’s just brought home a date and forgot to hide his laundry. It’s not for the sake of Brock & Jock of course. Just freeform anxiety choosing now to remind him he should have planned for this. It’s not like Steve’s a slob, but labs are crowded spaces. He didn’t exactly have room for the canvas already set aside a day early. Why is he so eager to bring it inside now anyway?

“Got it?” Jock asks, once Steve stops to stare down at _The Winter Soldier_ , staring up at him from where he lays flat on his back. 

“Got it,” Steve says. At that moment he doesn’t exactly have a deep vocabulary either.

The two men go to leave, and it takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for Steve to remember he has to badge them out since they aren’t technically museum staff. He actually runs on his way back to the lab, skids to a halt in front of his work bench, and goes right back to staring. 

“...Wow,” he says, then, eyes lingering on that perfect mouth, that practiced smile, and wonders out loud, “Who are you?”


	5. Friends in the Right Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to http://thelittleblackfox.tumblr.com/ who helped capture Luis' unique voice!

Steve has spent many, many late nights in his lab. Pressing deadlines, angry clients, or time-sensitive layering has seen him recorded on quite a few after-hours security feeds at the Met. One time, an entire exhibit had been seven hours from opening when they’d found the framers hadn’t used the right security hooks. Long after the other conservators gave up for the evening, Steve had stayed up alongside the installation team re-mounting all fifty-two pieces so that the poor event staff wouldn’t have to cancel their opening. All that’s well and good, but Steve has never actually _slept_ in the museum, until now. 

He startles awake when someone enters the room, finding himself sprawled out on the employee lounge sofa. It’s huge, soft, and considering he barely takes up half of it, more than big enough for him to fully stretch out with his laptop to get some late night research in before catching his train home. He watches Luis, the morning security guard, pump a fresh round of coffee out of the tall carafe by the sink, whistling a tune along with the tap of his nightstick against the counter. 

Steve scrubs his face with one hand, trying to find his laptop in the soft cushions with the other as his brain slowly comes back online. This sofa could swallow him whole if he isn’t careful, but then at least that would be the end of his headache. He listens to the whistling while he hunts, worrying about catching his train home. It takes exactly three more beats for the penny to drop. 

“Damn it!” Steve blurts out, and Luis takes a mild sip of his coffee before opening another packet of creamer.

“You awake, brah?” 

“Yes!” Steve yanks his laptop up and pats down his pockets with his free hand, hunting for his phone. “How long was I– What time is it?”

“Seven,” Luis answers, with another tentative sip, smacks his lips and in goes another packet of creamer. “In the morning. Your ‘ol lady kick you out? That’s rough.” 

Steve snorts. “Not exactly. Just a late night.” What had Steve even been reading by the time he fell asleep? Probably World War II history. He had strange dreams about being in some kind of Army training. A patriotic bugle was tootling so loudly that he kept having to ask a spitting drill sergeant to repeat himself, to the point where the man was basically screaming in his ear. Dream logic twisted an anxious, desperate situation into something more frustrating and boring, and now that he’s awake and free of it he still feels he has a lingering chore left to do. “Hey, don’t you usually start at nine?”

“Yeah, brah, I do,” Luis agrees. Apparently satisfied with his pale, creamy coffee, he leans back into the counter. “But they got this new Hockney retrospective in nine-nine-nine, you know the special after hours exhibit?” Steve nods. He hasn’t seen it himself, but he knows the museum has some special promotion going on for members to see the exclusive evening exhibition, making the most out of their two hundred dollar annual fees.

Luis nods along, always to the beat of his own drum. “Been following him since the early days, the _really_ early days, not his realism period, but that true exploration of perception an’ representation. That stuff hits me right here,” he adds, bringing his coffee cup vaguely towards his chest. “But Kurt over in the American Wing and Dave in Instruments say the realism’s where it’s at. I told them both, nah man! You can’t compare Hockney in the late two-thousands with Hockney in the nineties! Like, maybe you _can_ , I appreciate art in all its forms, but you’re not Pablo Picasso because you painted a dog that looks like a dog and a house that looks like a house, an’ shit. So I told Kurt an’ Dave to meet me in nine-nine-nine early so we can settle things. You want to come?”

Steve blinks, trying to keep up with Luis’ whole story, before he finally catches on that he’s been invited to join the trio of security guards to Gallery 999 to enjoy the Hockney retrospective exhibit.

“Oh! No. Thank you, though.” The invitation is actually welcome surprise. Steve knows both Dave and Kurt, and it would be great watching them hold their own against Luis’ expertise on Hockney. Still, he feels that itch to get to his lab, to spend the day with _Winter_ under his microscope after its night out of the ice. 

Luis just shrugs and gives him a sympathetic smile over his coffee. “Hope you and your lady make up.” 

“I’m gay,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. 

“My bad! You and your man, then,” Luis says over his shoulder, and the lounge door shuts behind him. 

Steve sniffs himself and briefly considers going home for a shower. Of course, he’ll have to turn right back around as soon as he steps foot in Brooklyn to make it back in by nine, so he decides to wash up in the restroom and hope for the best. Just like college all over again; late nights turning into all-nighters turning into crack-of-dawn panic sessions, trying to force creativity out of his over-analytical brain onto canvas.

Steve sips his own coffee as he shuffles through his lab’s door, scrunching up his nose at the memories. He’s glad he can leave his parka hanging up with the small collection of smocks and aprons, since the ice box will probably get dismantled today after he submits his report. He wonders vaguely if Brock & Jock will still be hanging around, then drops his mug when he sees _Winter_. The ceramic mug shatters on the cement, leaving a dark brown starburst of coffee painted on the floor like a muddy firework.

“Shit!” Steve hardly notices the spill.

 _Winter_ did not fare well after its first night out of the ice. There’s something wrong with the stretchers, or maybe the sizing, since the paint layer puckered near the center and bowed along the edges where it sags under its own weight.

“No, no, no…” Steve throws off his jacket and tosses his messenger bag aside, and wants to put his hands on the canvas before he stumbles to his work bench to fetch some nitrile gloves. “What did I do?”

There’s very little precedent in the art conservation world for restoring a painting frozen in solid ice over the course of half a century. Steve can tell himself that he would have had no way to predict the damage that was done just by leaving it out in his humidity controlled room. The fine threads of the canvas linen shrank, and since the sizing swelled during its time under water, the oil layer wound up shriveling as it dried. The beautiful _Winter_ now resembles something close to an old avocado skin. 

The painting would have been much better off if Steve had left it in the ice box overnight, and thinking on it now that should have been the obvious choice. For some reason he insisted that Brock & Jock move it into his lab. Why? That’s exactly what Peggy asks him once she sees the damage for herself, and even more unfortunately what Steve can’t answer. After a few moments of awkward silence, she nods once in understanding.

“Can you restore it?” Peggy coolly asks, surprising him when she moves on so suddenly. 

“I- _Yes_. Mostly. There will be a craquelure that wasn’t there when he first came out of the ice. There’s no way to completely iron out that sizing without it now that the paint’s shifted so much.”

Peggy hadn’t been in her office when Steve had discovered _Winter’s_ horrendous state, but he’d caught her the moment she walked in, before sending his daily report in to Shield’s. As far as they know, the painting is officially still in the ice box. She takes another slow lap around his work table, examining the edges of the frame. “And you didn’t log an image into your report after it had been removed?” 

“I fell asleep in the staff lounge last night,” Steve admits. His failure is sitting right there in front of them, and luckily that makes him feel a lot more bold than he has any right to. No point in backing down now. “I didn’t have a chance to submit it. I wanted to know what you thought first, if you wanted to do any damage control.” He means if she wanted to fire him, so that she could assure Alexander Pierce that action had been taken after this monumental fuck up. 

Peggy inhales slowly, glancing from Steve to _Winter_ then surprisingly catches sight of the coffee stain on the floor, which is in the process of drying into sludge. She closes her eyes then, and holds back her sigh just long enough for Steve to realize she’s made a decision. “Good. See if you can get him back in shape, and submit whatever photo you can take of him looking as good as possible. You can use the humidity hood in the sculpture lab, if that helps. I’ll send their staff home and let them know they can dismantle the ice box. Steve,” Peggy adds, after Steve glances away, cheeks burning as soon as he realizes she’s going to let him get away with it. “There was no way you could have known.”

Steve isn’t really happy with that excuse. He _should_ have known. The painting had been through so much in one day, to bring it inside after so long was just too much for it. “I don’t even know why I thought it’d be a good idea. What was I thinking?” 

Peggy opens her mouth as if to speak, then changes her mind and shrugs instead. “Guess you’ll just have to live with it.”

He’ll have to live with the fact that she’s covering for him too, allowing him a chance to correct the damage before logging in his progress. Before he can wrap his head around just how much he’s willing to let her risk for his sake, Peggy gives him a warm squeeze on his elbow. “It’s alright if it was just something you needed to do, Steve. You’re allowed to feel a little possessive of your work.”

 _His_ work? _The Winter Soldier_ isn’t Steve’s work, it’s his _task_. Thinking of restoration as a personal project is dangerous, that’s when restorers start bleeding too much of themselves into paintings and corrupt the aesthetic quality of the artists’ original efforts. He’s seen it happen, and it’s always a disaster. _Ecce Homo_ in Spain is a famous example, when a little old lady restored a century-old fresco of Jesus into something that shocked (and then miraculously delighted) the world with it’s hideousness. The story of that amateur misadventure in restoration might be charming, but the original work has been utterly eclipsed and lost forever.

“He’s not mine,” Steve argues. He’s going to be honest about that, as long as he isn’t allowed to be honest with Shield’s about his fuck up. “But I can fix the damage.”

“Right,” she says with a nod, and the conversation is over.

She leaves the lab without another word, sidestepping the muddy coffee. Steve listens to her clicking heels retreat until the heavy door shuts, sealing him in with his mistake. He’d instinctively wanted to thank Peggy before she was out of earshot, to let her know he appreciates the fact she didn’t fire him on the spot, but he doesn’t feel any real gratitude. The art world is small. Art conservation even smaller. If he had been fired for this, he’d have to rethink his entire career. Still, something feels off about the way she came to this decision, like she almost approved of it. 

No use worrying about it now, he figures, and huffs his bangs out from in front of his eyes again. If he is going to fix that canvas, he’s not going to need humidity, he’s going to need some brute force—something he’s never exactly had much to speak of. Brock & Jock certainly have the requisite skills, but asking them would mean the jig was up and Shield’s would know exactly how their faith in the Met’s conservation department was entirely misplaced. 

Steve digs his phone out of his back pocket to check the time. It’s only eight-thirty in the morning, and he quickly knows who to ask for help. 

Gallery 999 is an exhibition gallery, set up with walls that can be moved and adjusted to suit the requirements of whatever show comes through the Met’s prestigious seasonal showcases. Hockney’s exhibit contains two hundred pieces, so 999 had been filled to capacity, with an open viewing area dead center. This is where he finds the trio of security guards in a heated intellectual debate.

“This is why he no longer paint the double portrait,” Kurt is in the middle of explaining, thick Russian accent giving an extra zip to his words, while he tilts his head towards the wall of sketches. “Nothing compare to portrait drawings.”

“Y’all have no shame,” Dave says, showing genuine disappointment in his companions as he shakes his head back and forth. “No shame at all. You gotta appreciate the transition back to cubism. You can see all ‘a the modernist movement, the cubism movement, playing with perspective ‘n shit, all in one. Single. Paintin’. All ‘a it!” He clicks his tongue in his mouth. “Portrait drawings my ass.” 

“I feel ya, brah, I feel ya,” Luis says, mediating between the two. “But you should really consider his pièce de fucking résistance is obviously in his early LA period, where he gets together with his homies in the swimming pools. Light on water man, that shit ain’t easy to express, and you got brah swimming under there like it ain’t nothing. You can feel the sun on your face, and dude lookin’ down is feelin’ it too. You ever see artists in the seventies paint pictures that queer an’ still get like, jobs an’ shit? Because brah was out there living his life, no shame and all that shit. And he could have gone to that castle and bent his knee before the Queen, and let's be real here, dude bent his knee more than once. You seen his picture? Fine looking man, I'm telling ya. But he said ‘hell no.’ Man was keepin’ it so real, he turned down an actual knighthood. Mad respect for that, brah, mad respect.”

Steve blinks after cocking his head sideways at Hockney’s _Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)_ that Luis had lovingly gestured towards. His own expertise isn’t exactly in modern painters, but he supposes Luis has a point about there being queer themes throughout the collection. It’s especially obvious in Hockney’s very experimental early work where a clear attempt to express otherness is being made. Interesting, but not what Steve is there for.

“Luis?” Steve breaks in, feeling all five-feet-two inches of his height when he approaches the three uniformed guards across the length of the gallery. How is it that he can feel so small and stand out so much at the same time? 

“Yo, Steve!” Luis greets. “Glad you made it, brah.”

Steve has an entire churn of excuses lined up, explaining why he doesn’t want to wait for the fellowship interns to arrive for the day, full of energy and any excuse to put it to good use, or why he isn’t going to Brock & Jock, considering this is exactly the sort of thing they are here for. As much as he hates it, Steve is also prepared to confess that he only needs to ask because he is physically incapable of having either the wingspan or the strength to pull _The Winter Soldier_ tight on a new set of stretchers.

Instead, he awkwardly manages to say, “Oh, uh. Sorry to interrupt. I know you guys came in early to check out the exhibit, but, um. Do you think you could lend me a hand with a painting?” 

“Oh, no doubt!” Luis exclaims, no reason given, no reason needed. “In your lab downstairs? Come on, let’s go.”


	6. Chairman Pierce

It takes Luis and Steve thirty minutes to re-stretch _The Winter Soldier_.

Steve’s already painstakingly removed the rusted staples that held the linen to the rotten stretchers while he was waiting for Peggy to get in that morning. The fact that the canvas was stapled is further evidence of its age, since anything older—such as a Beaugureau—would have been tacked down with nails. The staples can also be tested on metallurgy, age, and even the manufacturer’s brand to mine them for more information about _Winter_ ’s provenance, so he carefully cataloged the staples in his notebook, one by one, before sorting them into a sectioned specimen tray.

Luis’s job is to hold the weakened stretcher bars as Steve frees the canvas. It’s horrible work, since normally Steve would apply a tissue layer with a non-reactive glue to the painting to protect it, but in this case such a procedure would only further set the puckered layers. Now, Steve’s heart beats out of his chest as he handles the painting without any protection other than his own nitrile gloves, and eases it onto his work surface.

Steve also already had a set of stretcher bars prepped by the fabrication shop, but the new wood isn’t the problem. As they fit the canvas over the bars and re-staple it in place, the picture needs to be pulled back out to its regular proportions on thin and fraying linen. While this work would normally be done face-down, Steve must carefully watch the image for any disproportionate stretching, so they are forced to do it face-up.

Luis manages to keep up with the fiddly technique, using his body weight to hold down the wood while Steve painstakingly urges the puckers out of the picture, slow enough to avoid further cracking, gentle enough to ease the tortured paint back where it belongs without it sticking to itself. As predicted, there is a fine craqueleur that hadn’t been present before, a result of the paint rapidly drying, leaving a fine lacework of cracks throughout the image. There’s no helping that, but if it hadn’t been frozen the craqueleur would have occurred naturally over time regardless. Odd to think it’s almost like he’d instantly aged the painting as soon as it came out of its cryo-freeze.

“That’s one fine lookin’ guy,” Luis declares as soon as the soldier’s face re-emerges from the mottled mess Steve made of his canvas. “He still alive?”

Steve glances up quickly from those brilliant blue eyes, after being trapped in a moment of relief to find them still glowing out from that warm, cautious face. “What? I don’t know, actually. We don’t know who he is. We don’t even know if he’s a real person.”

“I feel ya and I don’t want to tell you how to do your job or nothing, I got mad respect for all the school you must have done to get here, but no one captures a face like that without a real person to look at, right? My cousin Ernesto was in the Army and when he made rank, he got hella stupid proud about his sergeant pins, like his balls grew three sizes.” Luis waves to the soldier’s jacket, where three stacked chevrons are clearly visible, standing out in the warm, glowing gold tones as the rest of his buttons. “Homie is scared about this war, but trying real hard not to show it. All his guys need to know that’s not how he rolls, because he’s a leader. Is a model going to be scared, getting his picture painted? Hell no.”

So Steve isn’t the only one who thinks this carefree image holds a measure of desperation and exhaustion. Luis is probably the most perceptive art critic he knows, so it’s no surprise he’s picked up on it too. It’s a bit of a relief to know Steve isn’t just seeing things, filling up on sentimentality that has no business rattling a restorer’s thoughts.

Steve looks again, knowing he’ll be looking many more times, asking the same questions, wondering about this subject’s life as an artists’ model or hell, maybe even a real soldier. For now, he just needs to focus on the sizing, the oil, the varnish, on testing the staples and ensuring the new stretchers will keep the painting in one piece as the oil settles back into its original shape. Conservation work has to come before restoration, and luckily Steve is an expert in both disciplines. He also works in stages, and right now he’s just happy they’d managed to save the soldier without too much damage.

“He’s probably a model,” Steve offers, not willing to dive deeper into it. “It wouldn’t have been impossible for the artist to have painted this from a photo, either. I’m willing to bet once I get this varnish off we’ll see more of this background, too. That might be even more interesting than the soldier.” Far beyond the wall, across an indistinct field, is the dark silhouette of a town. It’s as if the soldier had found some free standing brick barrier, separating his makeshift outdoor studio from the village in the distance. Perhaps the brick wall is from a war-ravaged ruin?

Steve clicks his tongue and leans back. There he goes again with that sentimental distraction.

“So what’s next, brah? You need any help getting him up on the stand?” Luis’ watch gives a modest little chirp, and he sucks in a breath of disappointment. “Shift starting. You ever come by American Art say what’s up!”

Steve thanks Luis for his help, and finally allows himself to breathe a sigh of relief before he gets back to work. He starts with the lab’s suspended camera, angling it carefully over the canvas for a few snapshots. It had been impossible to get decent archival imaging done while the work had been in the ice. He finishes attaching the images and logs his report in the shared drive for Shield’s, transcribing even his handwritten notes on the staples and all. He includes a summary of the craquelure as well, then deletes the details of his fuck up. As much as he hates it, he’ll have to continue following Peggy’s lead and bury the mistake. It’s not just Steve’s job on the line, after all. The trust that the art world puts in the Met’s conservation department is the real risk, and wasn’t he just fuming a few days ago over what restoring a copy might do to their reputation?

Steve sends off his report, omitting any incriminating evidence, then closes his laptop and takes a breath. It’s done. Time to move on.

A sensation suddenly pulls at Steve’s back, startling him as if the soldier had called his name. He spares the painting a brief glance before his eyes dart to the sterile corners of his lab, then scrubs the back of his neck where the fine hairs stand on end. He’s not sure what had suddenly convinced him he was no longer alone, but of course it’s just himself and _The Winter Soldier_. The painting immediately draws him back in at the thought.

It looks even better than Steve thought it might after fixing the sagging canvas. Like the faint silhouette of the village in the background, Steve notices a few more details: the struggling creep of ivy making its way up the edge of the brick, and the back of a bicycle leaning against it. It’s odd that he hasn’t noticed the bike until now, the soft brush of green, rusty on the edges where the fairings are dented.

There’s a few steps he needs to take before he can really get his hands dirty. Like the Bouguereau, he schedules a number of scans, including the standard gamut of ultraviolet, infrared, and autoradiography in Dr. Bruce Banner’s off site lab, which can derive certain pigments in various layers by exposure to small doses of radiation. He makes sure to send Peggy an official request to utilize the Delft synchrotron x-ray, just in case. Once he can see the chemistry of the piece, he’ll know where to start his restoration plan, and even though the process will take days, moving forward without the test would be like trying to restore the piece blindfolded.

Steve is able to run the standard x-ray himself, and while the first images start loading on the lab’s computer he takes a seat for the first time that day. His shoulders instantly sink forward and his back burns with the ache of standing for too long, hunched over tall tables and peering into the depths of magnifiers. Steve snaps off his nitrile gloves, tosses them aside and rubs the back of his neck with his sweaty hands. His stomach lets loose an angry rumble and his head swims.

What time is it? Steve has completely lost track. It hurts to shift his hips enough to pluck his phone from his back pocket, but he honestly didn’t think it had been that long until he sees it’s already past six in the evening. “Ugh,” is all he can manage. Even his mouth is dry and his throat hurts, likely because he hasn’t even had a sip of water for hours. Steve’s stomach makes an almost identical _ugh_ in response, trying to speak his own, disappointed language that he skipped lunch.

Steve glances over to the coffee stain, all that remains of his caffeine-based breakfast. The museum has janitorial services, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take responsibility for _something_ today. Steve manages to root around in the supply room for some wet/dry Swiffer cloths, even though he can’t find the handle for the Swiffer itself, and a bottle of cleaner. When he gets back, he stops short, catching sight of someone else in his lab.

Steve’s heart kicks up in his chest with that sudden fear of seeing something wrong, regardless of how nice the man’s suit is and how casually he stands there, peeking under the white cloth covering _The Winter Soldier_. Steve’s lab is a secure area, with few people outside of the guards having direct access. There certainly shouldn’t be a stranger just hanging out with some of the museums masterpieces in storage along the back wall, and client work like Monsieur La Rochelle’s _Crown II_.

Steve drops the cleaning supplies outside the door, shoves it open and braces all ninety-eight pounds of himself for a fight.

“Excuse me,” he grinds out. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Oh!” The man turns around, startled by Steve’s sudden entrance. Good. “You must be Steven Rogers. My name is—”

“How did you get in here?” Steve demands, not letting him finish.

“Oh, Ms. Carter let me in. She went to go find you,” the man starts to explain, but Steve already thinks he must be lying. His placid smile is too insincere as he stands next to _Winter_ without a visitor badge, slipping his hands into the pockets of tailored pants. He seems utterly unconcerned that he was caught where he shouldn’t be, like he’s the sort of man that assumes he’s permitted _anywhere_ , and that bothers Steve more than anything.

“I think maybe you should wait outside,” Steve decides, cutting the stranger off again, and giving a meaningful look at the bright red button near the door marked as an alarm with bold, block letters. “Until _Doctor_ Carter comes back of course. This is a very sensitive area of the museum.”

Steve reaches into his back pocket for his phone, prepared to text both Peggy _and_ Luis, but the door behind him opens and he turns to see Peggy’s exasperated face.

“There you are,” she says, quickly catching her breath. She’s carrying a museum lanyard with a visitor badge. “I was worried you’d gone home for the day. Steve I’d like you to meet Alexander Pierce. He came to see how _The Winter Soldier_ has been going.”

Steve feels an uneasy swirl of emotions: shock at the braziness of his own threats, quickly followed by suspicion over the fact that the man just showed up out of nowhere, after days of absolutely no communication. Steve also can’t help but feel a creep of curiosity to meet the Chairman of Shield’s, and suddenly becomes acutely aware of having slept in the same clothes he’s wearing.

“Nice to meet you,” he manages to say, and holds out his hand. “Steve Rogers.”

Pierce takes his hand and gives him a gracious smile. “Sorry, Dr. Carter. I couldn’t help but take a peek, even though you asked me to wait. Snuck a look at some of the stuff on top of the drawers first,” he adds, pointing a thumb over to the flat file against the back wall.

“Perfectly alright,” Peggy says, raising both hands in assurance before she passes him the visitor ID. “I am honestly sorry there aren’t more people still in the office to give you a better tour of our facilities. In the meantime, Steve, how is our latest guest doing?”

Steve wets his lips. She’s asking if _Winter_ is ready to show again, despite the damage she had seen earlier that morning. Steve nods, then watches Pierce for another few beats, unsettled by the fact that the man doesn’t take his eyes off him until Steve pulls the sheet down from his easel to reveal the painting.

Pierce stays quiet for half a minute, visibly roving over the canvas, catching on the soldier’s bold blue eyes, picking out the bright gold tones of his shiny buttons, nodding over the same confirmation that it was indeed an American uniform. His attention hovers a little too long around the soldier’s mouth before he licks his own lips, which sends a spike of annoyance through Steve. Pierce takes a step forward, hands returned to his pockets, but this time he looks like he has to fight a line of tension in his spine to lean closer to the canvas to examine the visible sliver of the soldier’s wrists.

“Magnificent,” he finally whispers, still watching the canvas, as if he were waiting for it to get up and move around the room. “Did you find out who the artist was?”

“Not yet,” Steve admits. “There’s no visible signature, no markings on the back. The paint layer is really thick, and since the glazing is so delicate that leads me to believe there’s a few revisions underneath this final version.”

Steve had noticed it right away, similar to the Beaugureau, which just hadn’t felt right. It was another reason the painting had puckered so badly overnight, all that paint weighing down the delicate fabric.

“Underneath?” Pierce’s eyebrows go up and he gives a second, even longer look over the painting, but Steve thinks his naivete is entirely forged for their benefit. This man practically runs the entire fine art world in the United States, of course he knows how common it is for oil painters to layer over previous drafts. “So there could be more to it than what we see here?”

Steve glances at Peggy, but she doesn’t seem concerned about his question, so Steve nods. “I can’t be sure until we get all the x-rays back of course. It could have just been the technique the artists used and the subject doesn’t change.” All those alchemical tests wouldn’t have been necessary if Pierce had just answered his emails the last few days, given Steve some hint as to what he might be working with. Instead, Steve and his team had been left to experiment with all those thaw baths, practically reinventing the wheel each time he checked the painting’s progress.

“Hmm,” Pierce says, accepting the explanation, but obviously not entirely convinced. He clearly expects to find something else in _Winter_ that they haven’t uncovered yet, and Steve immediately suspects that the man knows a whole hell of a lot more about the painting’s provenance than he’s admitted. “I looked you up when Dr. Carter proposed you take on the restoration. I’ll admit I was a little surprised by your age. Imagine my surprise when I checked out your portfolio. How did it feel to touch up a Vermeer with your very own hands?”

“I was very lucky,” Steve explains, the same excuse he always uses when people remark on how young he is. Twenty-seven isn’t exactly a babe in the woods, but in the world of art restoration, most are mid to late thirties before landing a job at an institution like the Met. By all accounts, Steve should be a struggling amateur, using supplies from the craft store in his Youtube tutorials. “My mother encouraged my art from a very young age.”

“Amazing work,” Pierce says, calm and proud as a father. “But I couldn’t help notice there’s no originals. What kind of artist doesn’t want to put his own mark on the world?”

“I’m not an artist,” Steve automatically answers, still pissed that the man only shows up now, suddenly and unwelcome, as soon as the painting came out of the ice. “I’m a restorer.”

Conservators ensure a piece of artwork will be rescued from damage, to arrest any decay and preserve it for future generations, while restoration is a discipline that includes filling in the losses, and returning a piece to what the original artist intended. There’s a fine line between the two disciplines, one Steve easily steps over from side to side, but he doesn’t think Pierce cares about the distinction enough for him to go into it.

Pierce gives a friendly laugh, like that’s the cutest thing Steve could have said about himself, already turning to leave with Peggy, this time without a second glance at the canvas. “Call me when _The Winter Soldier_ is ready to pick up.”

* * *

 

 _The Winter Soldier_ , unfrozen by [Cryo-Bucky](https://cryo-bucky.tumblr.com/)!


	7. New York December 8 1941 - Brooklyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: Extreme period-typical homophobia, slurs, and mention of conversion therapy.

Steve is utterly exhausted by the time he finishes cleaning up the coffee stain. He hasn’t been home in nearly two days, he’s starving, and is in desperate need of a shower and a good night’s sleep in his own bed. He calls it a night after the dark spill has blackened a significant number of Swiffers, and shuffles his notebook and his laptop into his messenger bag for the commute home. It’s Friday, but he knows he’ll be back bright and early the next morning in order to continue his efforts and meet his deadline. He’ll start by going through all the x-rays, and Dr. Banner confirmed earlier that he’d make himself available for a Saturday appointment at his radiology lab. 

The soldier will be spending a second night out of the ice, now with stretchers that can actually support his weight. Steve feels an uncomfortable doubt settling in the pit of his stomach, but tells himself the soldier will be fine on his own. He survived a World War and Steve’s stupidity after all, right? 

Still, Steve slips the cover off the easel one more time, just to soak in the sight of him. Paintings like this are always so enchanting, Steve muses, trying to memorize the lines of that proud face. Like a beautiful story, each time Steve takes a look at _The Winter Soldier_ with fresh eyes he sees something new. The dents and dings in the visible half of the bicycle browning with rust like old scabs, the glowing red cherry at the end of the soldier’s cigarette, releasing a tendril of smoke so fine that there might actually be a wisp of cloud floating in Steve’s lab. The soldier’s jaw is sharply angled, coming to a pointed chin that dimples in a small cleft.

Luis had pointed it out before, but the soldier’s carefully concealed fear is still there, drawing a line down from his slightly hunched shoulders and creasing the flesh at his wrists where his hands sit tightly in his pockets. He’s leaning forward, leaving the ends of his jacket’s loose belt to dangle. There’s something inviting about it, that despite his fear, he’s inviting the viewer to join him. _Come on, fellas, we’re in Europe!_ He seems to say. _Who could resist a free trip to Paris!_

Maybe it’s not himself that this soldier is worried about, but his men, who are right on the verge of no longer believing a word out of his beautiful mouth. Maybe that’s why he looks so nervous, and it has nothing to do with fear for his own personal safety. Steve decides that’s exactly what it is; this soldier looks as if he’s caught in a lie.

“But who _are_ you?” Steve whispers, and for a moment forgets entirely that he isn’t supposed to care, not really, that whomever had modeled for _The Winter Soldier_ wasn’t nearly as important as who’d painted it, that the brick wall and the town’s silhouette and the bicycle are only useful in that the chemistry of the pigments should make up a provenance he can report back to Shield’s.

Like an amateur, Steve reaches out with his bare hands, and touches the very edge of that beautiful mouth— 

—A spell of dizziness washes through him in an instant, almost knocking his feet out from under him and he closes his eyes for just a few moments to stop the world from spinning. Steve’s apparently managed to make his way out of the museum in a haze, because suddenly he’s on the street, clutching his messenger bag strap, and shivering. Apparently, he’s left his jacket behind. 

“Shit,” he mutters, and turns around to go back, but finds he’s managed to wander out of the wrong side of the museum. Rather than finding himself halfway through his familiar walk in the park, he’s on a street between two older buildings. Not even really a street, more like an alley, and the older buildings are more like relics rather than the swanky converted industrial stuff with hipster coffee houses on the lower floors that you usually find in Manhattan. Steve turns around again, because suddenly he’s not so sure where he is. 

“What the fuck…?” He hears men shouting on the opposite side of a tall wooden fence, and he quickly puts his head down. He doesn’t need any of that. Steve pulls out his phone, taps on Google Maps, and rolls his eyes when it does nothing but spin. Zero bars. More screaming. Steve is so hungry he feels nauseated. 

That’s when he hears someone scream the words, _cocksucking fairy!_ And his head snaps up in instant clarity. Who the fuck? In this day in age? In New York? 

Steve shoves his phone away and stomps around the fence. He instantly sees that he’s made a terrible mistake, but can’t stop himself. Three men have surrounded a fourth, and those three men have big muscles, rough hands, and nasty snarls on their faces when Steve shouts, “The fuck is your problem, you fucking homophobes!”

The fourth man looks sickly, pale, and wears old fashioned overalls that appear three sizes too large, even on his doughy frame. He slumps back against the fence when he sees Steve, not at all grateful for the intervention. The others are startled by his voice and spin around, then their eyes go wide with surprise when they actually see him.

“Who the fuck is this?” one of the men says, while another laughs. “This your boyfriend? This your little punk? He’s adorable!” 

“I don’t know ‘em, Eddie,” the man in the overalls insists, again telling Steve he’s already bit off more than he can chew. He was willing to help chase off a bigot, but this guy looks like he’s willing to eat what he had coming to him. “I s-s-swear!” 

One of the others that had been laughing cackles again, and blurts out in a mocking tone, “You _s-s-swear_ , Arnie? Faggot eats so many cocks he can’t even talk right no more!”

“I-I-I don’t do that no more!” Arnie is crying, basically blubbering out as he shakes and stutters through his speech impediment. “They f- _fixed_ me! I swear it, Eddie!” 

“You guys are a bunch of bigots,” Steve hisses, then goes for a bluff. “I already called the cops. Get the hell out of here before you get charged with a hate crime.” 

The three bullies laugh, and Arnie shrinks in fear. “Oh no,” he whines, shaking his head. “Why wouldja do something like that, k-k-kid? Don’t even know me!”

“Well, in that case,” the man named Eddie says with a big huge shrug of his big huge shoulders. “We’ll give the cops a hand with this pervert.” 

Steve grew up in Brooklyn. He’s seen his share of fights, both fair and unfair, from bullies to vandals to folks just looking to cause trouble after enjoying their evening a little too much. He has never seen three huge men wail on someone so hard and so fast while he begs them to stop. It’s a shock to the system, like Steve can’t quite believe what he’s seeing as Arnie crumples under their awkward punches and a few low kicks. Then Steve snaps.

“You _fuckers_!” Steve bolts forward with a firm grip on his messenger bag—titanium backed laptop and all—and swings it as hard as he can against Eddie’s fat head. The man goes down in a heap, and for a split second Steve thinks this is it, he’s won, he’s knocked a bully flat on his ass, but then Eddie’s friend punches Steve in the face and the lights go out.

“Arnie run!” Steve hears, along with a great big crash of old metal trash cans toppling over. “Yo, kid! You okay?” 

No. Steve’s bell is thoroughly rung, and he’s on the ground, which won’t stop tumbling beneath his feet. “Fine,” Steve bitterly spits out, yanking his arm out of the newcomer’s grip and hisses in pain when his split lip makes itself known. “Shit!” 

“Shit’s right, we gotta’ scram,” the newcomer blurts out, and Steve barely makes a shout of protest before he’s hauled along the alleyway. He blinks away tears to see a man dragging him by the wrist, running towards the alley’s single opening. It’s dark out, and he’s wearing dark clothes, but something strikes Steve immediately as being very odd about this whole situation. They finally hit the main street and Steve’s rescuer skids to a stop. 

“Eddie’s boys had backup,” he quickly explains, hauling a bicycle up from a stack of them on the corner. All Steve’s tired, rattled brain can make out of him is that he’s wearing a pageboy cap, before he jumps on the bike. “They always hang out on that corner. Messin’ with old Arnie is just not something they sent all of the gang to do. You comin’ or what, kid?” 

Steve spins around at the sound of more angry shouting and there it is, a literal mob emerging from the other side of the fence where Steve had left Eddie behind. “Oh, shit!” What choice did Steve have? He jumps on the back of the bike, throws his arms around the guy at the handlebars, and hangs on for dear life. A makeshift seat rattles beneath him, and he holds on tighter, worried he might fall right off of the back faring.

“Hang on!” the guy shouts over the wind, as they speed into the street and— _fuck_! Right into the heart of New York traffic! Why save Steve’s life if he’s going to get them both killed? Steve hears a car horn explode off to his side, not one he expects, but something that makes him think of circuses and clowns, and tries to catch sight of the vehicle about to kill them. The man he clings to shouts profanity as he weaves around a vintage car, then gleefully shouts, “Coming through!” Before he hops a curb and Steve’s face smashes into his back. 

The bike hits the street again, and Steve’s teeth chatter nearly out of his skull on the texture of cobblestones. He clings tighter, just so that his face stops bashing against the wooly coat of his companion, until they finally make it back onto the slightly smoother sidewalk. The ride is just sane enough for Steve to try and take a look around, but when he looks up, he catches sight of the Manhattan Bridge, framed perfectly by the red brick warehouses on Washington Street and things go insane all over again. The problem of course is that Washington Street, that view of the bridge, and the road they are on, are all in Brooklyn, which means Steve made it all the way here without remembering the commute. Did he fall asleep on the train? But how did he get in that alley? Another car blares its horn, the man Steve clings to swears again, and continues to zoom past another lane of traffic. 

“Where are we going?” Steve shouts over the wind and his own racing heart. “God, damn it! Slow down!”

Steve doesn’t know why he’s surprised when the man actually does as he asks, and the bike comes to a jittery halt on the corner of Livingston and Jay Street. The signs are there, but Steve doesn’t recognize the corner shop, the gas station or the street itself, which is normally lined with cars at parking meters. “You okay, kid? Saw you clock Eddie Morogh like a champ! Figgered I’d help a fella out after you stick your neck out for poor Arnie.” 

“What’s going on?” Steve manages to blurt out, and stumbles off the back of the bike. “Where are we? Who are you? And I’m not a fucking kid!” 

The man’s eyebrows shoot up, and Steve sees it. The bright blue eyes, the perfectly angled jaw. The little cleft in the chin and the pink, full lips. His cheeks are flushed red from the chase, the tips of his ears are red as well, and he breathes hard, hanging onto the handlebars of a green, beat up bicycle. 

Steve can hardly believe it, but at the same time, has zero doubts. “It’s you!” 

He gives an awkward smile, and dismounts fully from the bike. “Yeah, I guess, me? Do I know you? I guess not, cuz then I’d know not to call you kid, huh?” 

Steve couldn’t have dropped his jaw further open if he was a snake, ready to unhinge. “Fuh- _fuck_ …” 

“Got kind of a mouth on you, don’t you?” The guy, the dead ringer for the model from _The Winter Soldier_ , scrubs the back of his head with one hand while hanging onto the bike with the other, and offers Steve an awkward smile. “Look, I appreciate what you did for Arnie and all, but maybe I’ll get going now. Hope I didn’t take you too far out of your way.” 

Steve watches him climb back aboard the bike, take a more measured look around at the traffic. This isn’t just some lookalike. This is _him_. The subject of _The Winter Soldier_. Not a painting at all, but an honest to god _person_.

“Wait!” Steve blurts out, before the guy makes it five feet. He stops, puts a single foot down to steady the bike as he looks back over his shoulder. Suddenly, Steve is struck dumb. What the hell is he supposed to say to this stranger? _I saw you in a painting that I keep in my lab, and I want to know if you’re a real life human being?_ Steve would sound like a crazy person. 

Is he a crazy person?

“You okay, pal?” the guy asks, eyebrows drawn in with genuine worry. “You actually got clocked pretty good there,” he says, dusting his own bottom lip with his thumb and Steve’s lip flares with the pain of the nearly-forgotten punch. “Need a doctor?” 

“I—no! No thank you. What’s your name?” 

The guy laughs, and hops back off the bike so that he can extend his hand. “Bucky,” he says. “Bucky Barnes.”

Steve shakes it, dumbstruck. Bucky? What kind of name is Bucky? The name of a young American during World War II, but that thought makes Steve confused, so instead he glances around, trying to orient himself. Only old cars line the street, he spots one that even has a crank in the front bumper. A vintage car show in town? But usually those kinds of cars are kept in really good shape and that one looked like a wreck. Steve shivers as a gust of wind scuttles down the street. How did he make it all the way to Brooklyn without his coat?

“Hey, you got a coat or something in that bag?” Bucky asks.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve blurts out, and releases Bucky’s hand like it’s on fire, since by now he’s been shaking it for far too long.

Bucky laughs again, and Steve realizes that Bucky laughs a lot. “Alright, Steve Rogers. You got some place you gotta be? I was on my way down to the recruiters, like every other fella in town. Had to wait til I got off work, so I hope they’re still open. Don’t want the war to end before I get there!” 

There’s a sentence Steve’s brain takes a few seconds too long to parse, so he just asks dumbly, “What war?” 

Bucky doesn’t laugh this time. “Geez,” he says, now giving Steve a genuinely skeptical look over. “You hit your head so hard you forget or something? The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor yesterday. America’s in the war.”

“Oh.” What else can Steve say? “Fuck.” 


	8. New York December 8 1941 - Recruitment

Steve sits down so hard his teeth click together. Bucky drops the bike, and goes to one knee, then claps his chilled hand against Steve’s forehead. “Aw, geez! I knew you got hit pretty hard. Hang on, I can get you to a doctor.” 

That clears things up pretty quickly as far as Steve’s priorities go, and he pushes Bucky’s hand away. “No, no, I’m fine. Sorry, I just. I skipped breakfast and lunch today. Feeling a bit woozy.” 

Bucky’s mouth goes sideways, again unconvinced. “A fella like you shouldn’t go around skipping anything,” he argues, straightens up and offers Steve a hand. “Come on, let’s go together. Sabrett’s gotta hot dog stand out there for all the fellas signing up. A nickle’s the least I can do to thank you for jumping in like you did.”

A nickel. For a hot dog. In 1945. No, that’s not right, Bucky said the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor yesterday. When was that? 1942? 1941? How can history be such a clutch part of his profession, and yet still allow one of the most important dates in US history to slip from his mind?

“Yeah,” Steve says, realizing Bucky is still waiting for his answer. “Alright.” 

That’s how Steve winds up on the back of the bicycle again, this time watching the vintage cars amble on by, feels the horrible vibration of the hard bicycle wheels rattling over streets still paved in cobblestones. Everyone on the street is wearing hats and smoking. At one point, he clutches his bag against his side, feeling the hard edges of his Macbook Pro dig into his hip. How is this possible? Is he dreaming? Hallucinating? Sleep walking? How did he get here? Steve was leaving his lab—or maybe he had already left—and was walking through the park… No, that’s not right. He’s almost certain he hadn’t actually left the museum yet. _Almost_. 

Why can’t he remember? 

Steve tightens his grip around Bucky’s waist, even as the ride slows down. “I gotcha,” Bucky says, placing one hand quickly over Steve’s before grabbing a hold of the handlebars again. “Don’t worry.”

They slow to a stop because the sidewalk is jam packed with foot traffic and Bucky clicks his tongue in annoyance. “Aw, hell,” he murmurs. They step off the bike, and Bucky pushes through a few people in line before he taps one guy on the shoulder. “This the line for the Army?” 

“Navy,” the guy answers, then takes another long drag of his cigarette and points with his chin as he exhales. “Army’s over there.”

“Thanks, pal,” Bucky says, and leaves the bike against the nearest shop front before he takes up Steve’s hand with a determined grin on his face. “Come on, Steve. Got some friends holding my spot, let’s see if we can find ‘em, then we can get your hot dog.”

Once again, Steve is pulled along in Bucky’s wake. This time, though, Steve holds on to Bucky’s cool hand, tight enough to feel the bones under his pale skin. Bucky’s hands are rough, calloused, and Steve wonders what he does for a living if he’s not actually a soldier yet. Oddly enough, that means that this Bucky, the one right in front of him, is not actually the same Bucky as the one committed to canvas, waiting for him back at the Met. 

That Bucky is already a soldier. _Was_ already a soldier? Steve has a headache.

They push through another crowd that is milling about in something like a line, and Bucky shouts and waves at someone he recognizes. Steve can’t really see much between all the dark coats and coughs in both the cold air and the haze of cigarette smoke. Did people really smoke this much in nineteen forty-whatever? Steve coughs again, and Bucky turns around. 

“You really are gonna catch cold,” he says, looking Steve up and down, then immediately starts to unbutton his coat. It’s a pea coat, thick navy wool, like a sailor’s, and fits him snugly around his trim waist. “I got a jacket on under this so it’s not—”

“I don’t need your coat,” Steve argues, clamping his arms across his chest. “Smoke’s getting to my asthma is all.” 

“Asthma? Oh, why didn’t you say so,” Bucky mumbles, and reaches into his pocket to pull out a little paper packet. He taps out a single cigarette, and offers it to Steve. “All yours, pal.” 

Steve looks at the cigarettes in his hand like a ball of live snakes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

“They’re good for your asthma, right?” Bucky reasons, again, a flicker of confusion drawing his eyebrows together. “My sister has asthma, the docs prescribed some to her. Clears out the lungs.”

That’s. Not a real thing. Is it? 

Steve shakes his head, and isn’t exactly sure what to say to that, but at least Bucky takes back his cigarettes and understands he’s declined. Luckily, someone shouts Bucky’s name and he turns around. “Mike! Ubby!” Bucky slaps Ubby on the back. “Hey, this is my pal Steve Rogers,” he says, waving Steve to join them in their huddle on the sidewalk. “I owe him one.” 

The man named Ubby, with a full on curled mustache and what looks like a tire around his waist, bellows out a laugh. “How many Germans is this guy gonna kill? Oh, Bucky. He won’t last a day.” 

Mike chuckles too, shaking his head. They are all wearing thick woolen coats, and if Steve was smart he would have accepted Bucky’s. Still, with them all huddled around it does get a bit warmer. “What has this clown pulled you into, Steve? You know you gotta be eighteen to join, right?” 

“I’m twenty- _seven_ ,” Steve blurts out, and even Bucky does a double take. “Please, you think size is everything? They still need intelligence officers, don’t they? Codebreakers?” 

Ubby bursts out laughing again. “Secretaries?” 

Steve can feel the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, like a cat’s, but before he could explode Bucky breaks in. “Hey, don’t let this guy fool ya! You know Eddie the Brick?” 

“Irish Eddie?” Ubby checks.

“Nah, this is the big bastard down near me. Guy who lays bricks down off South Manhattan.” 

“Oh, Eddie the _Brick_ ,” Mike says, as if Bucky hadn’t already said that. 

“Yeah! Stevie here knocked his block off. Was the best thing I ever saw! Fire ‘n fury, this one.” Bucky nudges Steve’s cheek in a mock punch, slow motion, as if Steve hadn’t used his laptop-weighted messenger bag and swung while Eddie’s back was turned. 

Mike and Ubby think this story is hilarious, but Steve gets a sense they think everything is hilarious. It’s only charming because Bucky joins in, and his eyes crinkle up in the corners when he laughs. “Shoulda’ seen the big jerk. Eddie the Brick went down like a _sack_ o’ bricks, I’ll tell ya!” 

“Man, that takes some guts,” Ubby snorts, giving Steve another look, then grins and waggles his eyebrows. “But I gotta admit, the Germans won’t know what hit ‘em!” 

“Because they won’t see him coming!” Mike declares, clasping Steve’s shoulder and giving him a good natured shake. 

Steve feels a laugh bubble up, and he can’t help it. The early offense he took to their teasing evaporates as Bucky regales his friends with their scrappy fight, Steve’s dogged determination, and ends with their daring escape. He tells a story with the skills of a Greek poet, pausing at all the right moments for emphasis, and some of the other guys around them start to listen in, cheering exactly when Bucky wants them to. The line inches forward as he spins his yarn, and Steve doesn’t feel quite so cold anymore since he somehow wound up in the center of their little circle, warmed by the body heat and laughter. 

“I just couldn’t keep walking when I heard them call Arnie a fairy,” Steve suddenly breaks in, once the story winds down. He shrugs, but Bucky’s face goes blank. “Goddamn homophobes...” 

“Eddie? A homo? I doubt it!” Ubby laughs again, while Mike gives him an odd look. Steve catches himself before he tries to correct him. 

“Hey, that’s right! I owe you a hot dog,” Bucky blurts out, then meets his eye, shakes his head, and that’s the end of it. Steve doesn’t bring it up again. He isn’t stupid. Being gay in the nineteen forties wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Bucky apparently knew this Arnie person and sounded grateful enough that Steve jumped in to help, but apparently that tolerance didn’t extend to his friends. Steve has always been self conscious, ready to defend himself, his size, and his sexuality. He has been forced to enough times in his life. Right now, though, he feels like he barely dodged strapping himself down under a microscope, and glances at Ubby with a renewed thought that maybe this man would be just as big of a bully as Eddie ‘the Brick’ Morogh if he knew Steve himself is as gay as Christmas.

“Save our spot, would ya?” Bucky says, giving Mike a pat, before he shoves his way through the crowd again, this time no longer holding Steve’s hand. “I think Sabrett’s is at the end of the block, but they mighta’ moved on account of all this.”

“Why is everyone trying to sign up right now?” Steve says, trying not to sound bitter as the weight of social fatigue catches up with him. 

“Well, hell,” Bucky explains, and stands on tiptoes to see over everyone’s heads before he makes a wide circle around the line. “We were all just in shock yesterday. Heard it on the radio myself at lunch time. What’s a fella supposed to do when he hears something like that? I went home and saw my sister and my ma after work let us out early. Ah! There he is.” 

Bucky trots ahead, and shouts over the crowd of men already demanding hot dogs from the sole cart on the street. Apparently, they weren’t the only ones with the idea of having their friends hold a spot in line, and Sabrett’s is booming. Steve’s stomach clenches and whines as soon as the smell hits his nose. It’s more like bacon than like the hot dog carts smell like in Brooklyn—his own Brooklyn—but it’s just as mouth watering. Bucky manages to get two beef franks, dumps mustard on both before he pulls free, after having cut in front of at least half a dozen other angry men.

“Alright! Hope you like mustard on your hot dogs, because if you put ketchup on ‘em then I guess we can’t be friends anymore.”

Steve laughs, taking the hot dog and answers by wolfing it down in about four huge bites. He chews and chews, cheeks stretched to bursting, while Bucky laughs so hard he can’t take a single bite until they are practically back to their spot with Mike and Ubby. 

“We miss anything?” Bucky asks, finally able to tuck into his own dinner. “I saw some of the guys from the Navy line stomping off.” 

Steve glances back around, still chewing his tangy meal, and notices for himself the Navy line they passed on the way is starting to break apart, grumbling men stomping off or tagging into the line that he was in. 

“Ran out of papers,” Mike shrugged. “Navy probably isn’t used to so many fellas signing up.” 

“The Navy is who got hit out in Hawaii,” Ubby argues, his tone suddenly going dark. “I don’t blame the guys wanting to give the Japs a little payback.” 

Steve winces at the slur, and Bucky shakes his head. “Don’t forget, this is the Germans that started this war. We oughta’ went over there first thing, before it got this bad. Then we woulda’ been ready for ‘em in the Pacific, too.” 

Ubby grunts through his mustache. “Hope it’s not a problem that my grandad is a German. Maybe it’ll even help, seeing as how I can speak some of it.”

“You mean to be a codebreaker, or work in intelligence?” Steve sneaks out, before he can help himself. All three of them, Bucky included, take a step back from Steve as if he’d just announced he was wearing a bomb vest. 

Ubby erupts with laughter, Bucky nearly chokes on his hot dog, and Mike puts his face in his palm. “Yes! Steve Rogers! The man with the plan!” Ubby declares, takes up Steve’s wrist and lifts him nearly a foot off the ground. “A regular Captain America over here, ready to knock Hitler’s block off!” A few other guys in the line alongside them join in their antics, a few solemn vows are made to stick together through basic, across Germany, right into the heart of Berlin to single-handedly win the war. No one can stop the boys from Brooklyn, and now Steve is one of them.

Steve laughs. He can’t help it. They have the social morals of ninety year old bigots, but in that moment, Steve forgets that he isn’t actually there to sign up for the Army and fight the Axis. It’s no wonder everyone in the city seems to have gathered outside of the recruiter’s office at this very moment, swept along with a patriotic fury to fight against the ultimate evil. The air is thick with duty and camaraderie, and Steve shuffles along as the line creeps closer to their shared destiny.

“Whattya mean!” Someone shouts from up ahead. “There’s a war going on and you have no more forms?” 

“Try the office in Bed Stuy,” comes a haggard voice, and the crowd immediately erupts with a suffering groan that ripples back to where Steve waits at Bucky’s side. 

“Aw, horse shit,” Bucky says with a sniff. 

“Damn! Guess the Navy guys were on to something,” Mike mutters, scuffing his shoe against the sidewalk. “Guess I better go home and tell the wife I skipped dinner for nothing.” 

“You fool,” Ubby gasps, shaking his head at his friend in abject shame. “You utter fool. Never skip on meals with the wife.” 

Mike lights a cigarette and it’s like watching a chain reaction, as everyone around them does the same, even Bucky, who tosses his lit match in the gutter. “Well, that was a damn waste of time. At least we got a couple’a good franks out of it,” he adds with a wink in Steve’s direction, cigarette clamped between his teeth. 

Steve swallows. Smoking is a filthy habit, but damn if that isn’t— _no_. Steve kills that thought before it can manifest. He swallows instead, and asks, “What now?” 

“Hmm,” Bucky humms, rolling his eyes as he thinks. “Ubby, you up for a trip to Fresco’s?” 

Ubby snorts. “What do you think? What did I just say about skipping on the wife?” 

“You said skip _meals_ ,” Bucky shoots back. They are all vaguely headed down the street together, away from the recruiter’s office, which hung a ‘CLOSED FOR PAPERWORK RESTOCK’ sign in the window. “Which you are clearly never guilty of doing.”

“We all can’t be as pretty as you, Barnes,” Mike snorts. “Or as single. I’m off to the wife too. Same time tomorrow?”

“Damn right,” Ubby declares, and the two go their separate ways. 

“What do you say, Steve Rogers, Man With the Plan? You up for Fresco’s?” 

Steve was exhausted before, and now he feels like he’s almost swimming. It makes sense if this is a dream, but he doesn’t think he’d feel tired if he was actually sleeping. The strange thing is that despite his aching, swollen lip and the weight in his limbs, he also doesn’t really care that much at the moment. 

“What’s Fresco’s?” Steve asks, instead of asking anything useful. 

“Oh, Stevie,” Bucky says shaking his head, as if he’s just as ashamed as Ubby had been for Mike’s wife. “You’re in for a treat.” Steve doubts that, but Bucky gives him a determined grin. “Tell ya what. I’ll be your personal guide to the best night of your life, if you promise to at least take this,” he insists, and pulls the scarf off from around his neck. 

It smells like aftershave and peppermint and Steve suddenly feels like his whole head bursts into flames when Bucky loops it over his shoulders, then loops it one more time and adds a modest knot without coming too far into Steve’s personal space. “Better,” he says with a satisfied nod. “I was cold just lookin’ at you.”

Steve swallows again, and falls into step beside his new guide. He isn’t thinking about how crazy this is anymore. He’s forgotten why he should be doing something more to figure out what’s happened to him, how he wound up in this dream scape. He glances over to Bucky, whose lapsed into a comfortable silence as they walk, caught in his orbit and happy for it. Steve knows this man, knows that smile, hell, that was even the bicycle that— 

“Hey, what about your bike?” Steve says, stopping to look for it, even though they are blocks away from where they started.

Bucky stops short in wide-eyed shock, like he, himself, only just remembered, then gives a derisive snort. “You mean Eddie’s bike?” Bucky winks at Steve. “Who cares.”


	9. New York December 8 1941 - A Matter of Pride

Fresco’s, as it turns out, is a dance hall. It really shouldn’t be a surprise—of course Bucky would be the kind of guy who goes out dancing after a crushing defeat at the hands of the local recruiters office—but Steve winds up stuck just outside the front door, confused about his own role in all of this. He catches a few, furtive glances of the dancers inside through the haze of cigarette smoke, billowing out onto the sidewalk every time the door swings open. The narrow brick building with its two arched windows just can’t seem to contain the rowdy party without blowing off some steam every few seconds.

“I can’t dance,” Steve argues, when Bucky rolls his eyes at his feeble excuses. Bucky is a little impatient, and Steve gets the sense that he’s not used to people telling him no. “I’ve just. I’ve never danced. Ever.”

There’s a big, neon sign above the door that says ‘Dancing’ in great big swirling letters, and ‘To Nite’ in smaller block print just beneath it. Apparently, it costs a whole dollar for twenty dances.

“Steve Rogers,” Bucky declares, “I promised you the best night of your life. Would I lie to you?”

“How should I know? We only just met.” 

Bucky makes a rude sound, and takes up Steve’s hand. “Guess I gotta’ prove to you that Bucky Barnes keeps his word.” 

There’s a few short steps into a main entryway, almost like a movie theater. Bucky pays two dollars to a woman who Bucky calls ‘Dollface,’ then plucks a dance card from a stack on the counter. The woman gives a long look at Steve’s jeans, but before she can point to the hand painted sign that says only, ‘ _Dress to Impress!_ ’ Bucky asks her if her own card is full, leans far over the counter and gives her a dazzling smile. She blushes, tells him her card is _always_ full, but just like that they’re in.

The smoke makes Steve’s eyes water, but at least it’s warm inside. All the dancing bodies, the raucous laughter, drinks and music and soft overhead lights makes it feel strangely inviting. A crowded, rowdy place like this would normally be Steve’s own personal nightmare, but instead he turns around in circles as he catches sight of all the Christmas decorations trailing along the edge of a gold-trimmed balcony. 

Steve reaches into his back pocket, because of course he should take a picture, and stops himself when he looks at the people around him. He should probably leave his iPhone out of sight. Besides, he should save the battery life, since he has no idea how long he’ll be stuck here, and sets it to airplane mode. Either way, he doesn’t have time to worry about it, because Bucky is already nudging him to the bar.

“The first step when learning how to dance is to get a shot of something hot in ya,” he explains, not a trace of irony in his tone or his knowing nod. “Two old fashions,” Bucky tells the man wearing a bow tie and a white apron on the other side of the wide stretch of polished mahogany.

Steve winces. He doesn’t really care for whiskey, or anything much stronger than a glass of wine or beer. Straight liquor tends to knock him on his ass pretty quick. However, Bucky did say this was the first step to learn to dance so there’s no helping it, really. Bucky slides the bartender some coins, scoops up both drinks, and immediately skirts around the dance floor, heading for a dark corner where a few bar tables are set up and surrounded by empty chairs. There’s another hand painted sign in the same, fine script as the dress code notice up front, that reads, ‘ _Ladies & Gents_’ with a bold, black arrow that points to a narrow set of stairs on the back wall. This would be a hipster paradise if it was in Brooklyn. Or rather, Steve’s version of Brooklyn, that’s quickly receding into the back of his mind as Bucky rearranges the furniture in this dark corner to block off space from the rest of the crowd. 

The dance floor is full, but the surrounding tables and chairs are not, and Bucky quickly makes a miniature square for them to practice on. He strips off his coat and his hat, and Steve copies him, slipping off Bucky’s scarf. It’s warm enough inside that he feels comfortable in his button down and his vest, and Bucky is wearing a three piece suit. He must have come from work when Steve ran into him. 

“Okay, so rule number two,” Bucky explains, taking this whole thing very seriously. “You gotta always go with the flow.” Bucky sips his drink, then uses the same hand to point out at the dance floor. “See how they all go the same direction? Ain’t nothing as annoying as a fella who swings his lady right into oncoming traffic.” 

Oh. So Bucky _is_ serious. Steve sips his drink and watches with wide eyes, trying to look like he’s paying as much attention as possible. It’s hard, because the music makes him tap his foot despite himself, and the couples on the floor all look like they belong on _Dancing with the Stars_ , spinning in time with the beat. A collection of colorful little boats, floating along down a cheerful river, circling the floor all in the same giant, clockwise current.

Steve takes another sip, and then another, as Bucky walks through the different rules of the dance floor, pointing out a few couples that are apparently doing it all wrong. After a while, Steve feels his belly start to warm up from the whiskey, and he can see for himself when a couple is bound for disaster, turning the wrong direction and—yup!—crash right into the pair in matching blue and white outfits.

“Ah, there they go! They didn’t follow rule number two,” Bucky says, giving a little nudge of his elbow into Steve’s arm to remind him of his drink. Steve feels laughter bubble up from his whiskey-warmed belly, and nudges Bucky right back. “Alright, now that you got that down, I’ll grab us another round and we can get started.” 

Steve leans his chin on his folded arms, watching the dancers, and can feel the vibration of the music through the wooden tabletop. It’s nice, a heady rhythm that fills him up and makes him want to move. Bucky comes back with two more drinks, along with two beers in addition, and gathers both of Steve’s hands in his own. 

“Alright, so the dance we’re gonna jump in on is the Lindy,” he explains, and points to Steve’s card where it lies open on the table next to their small collection of glasses. “So there’s a two-step start, a swingout, and a close, which you can then mix ‘n match all night long. It’s so easy once you get those three down, it’s the best for a beginner.” 

Steve shakes his head. There’d been a swing club in high school he’d dared to step foot in for all of one lesson, and all he really remembers from it is that they’d said the Lindy Hop was needlessly complicated. Still, Bucky’s moved on already, demonstrating the two-step and Steve needs to pay attention. He sips his drink and nods when Bucky glances up, looking for confirmation that Steve is following along. 

“Alright, now I’m gonna be the dame,” Bucky says, plucking Steve’s drink from him and then dropping his hands into Steve’s upturned palms. He laughs, and cocks his wrists, forcing his pinkies out in a more delicate angle. “The _dame_ ,” he reiterates, satisfied that he’s now doing a better imitation, and Steve laughs at him. Bucky looks up, cheeks flushed. “Alright, wise guy, go for it. You’ve got to lead now.”

Steve goes for it. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not great either. He winds up stepping on Bucky’s foot pretty quickly, which leads to more laughter and more drinks. Eventually, Bucky’s persistence pays off and Steve can do the two-step, the open, the close, and even the swingout. He loses track of the songs tumbling out of the musicians on stage, loses track of the crowd around them, and follows rule number two to the letter. He goes with the flow.

The music abruptly switches tempo, a few cheers go out in the crowd as a refreshed wave of dancers flood back onto the floor join in the favorite dance of the night. Steve laughs when he thinks this must be where the phrase ‘in full swing’ comes from, and goes to follow the rest of the crowd, trailing Bucky behind him.

“Wait, Steve,” Bucky objects, laughing as he lets himself get dragged along. “We gotta’ find you a lady to dance with.” 

“Not many ladies interested in a fella they might step on,” Steve shouts back, but he’s not bitter. He has Bucky, after all, and Bucky had showed him how to fill in a dance card by using himself as an example. Besides, it’s rule number two, which by now is the only rule Steve remembers. He steps into the line of dancers, pulls Bucky in to a closed position, and they’re off. Bucky laughs as Steve leads him on the dance floor, not exactly nailing every step, hopping to catch up when he misses a beat, and not quite connecting properly when he pushes Bucky away into a swingout. Other couples laugh at their antics as well, because as long as they keep to their lane, it’s really just a joke that two fellas are dancing together. 

Then they swing back in, and Steve’s chest bumps into Bucky’s, and— _oh_. Maybe it isn’t a joke. 

Bucky’s eyes are glassy as he looks down, and even he misses a step, the couple coming up behind them almost crashing into his back before Steve yanks him forward. “Ah, sorry!” Steve blurts out, because he is leading, he shouldn’t have let them stop so abruptly. He nearly trips over his own feet as he takes one too many steps backward, and Bucky grins, red faced and sweating. 

“Maybe we need a break,” he says. He’s still smiling, but he drops Steve’s hands as quickly as if they’d been on fire. “You thirsty? How about another drink?” 

“Ah,” Steve gusts out, and he has to hop to it to catch up with Bucky’s long strides as they hurry off the dance floor. “I think maybe, that’s actually—I’m not that big,” he manages to get out, and even he’s confused by whatever point he’s trying to make. Fuck and _damn it_ , he’s drunk.

Bucky gives him a look over, and nods. “Pooping out on me already?” he teases. “Where do you live, anyway? Maybe I should take you home.”

Steve laughs, because he could easily tell Bucky where he lives, and indeed, his studio apartment’s address is right on the tip of his tongue before he does the math and realizes he can’t go home. His building is an old converted warehouse, so chances are there’s either some industrial equipment still banging out newspapers inside it, or maybe it’s already a ruin, awaiting the economic boom that brings in the art movement to Brooklyn’s old industrial neighborhoods. For now, he’s stuck. And drunk. In the _past_.

“You okay, pal?”

“Can’t go home,” Steve finally admits, with a short giggle, then frowns. “What am I gonna’ do?”

A flicker of concern draws Bucky’s ready smile into a slight frown. “Why not? Got some problem at home?”

Steve shakes his head. How could he possibly explain? It’s so ridiculous that Steve can only giggle again, and swipes his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “What year is it?” 

“Oh boy, maybe you got clocked a bit harder than I thought!” Bucky says, giving Steve a little nudge with his shoulder. Bucky is a touchy feely kind of guy, Steve thinks. Never shy to give him a poke or a nudge or an exaggerated fake punch, even though they only just met. Only, they hadn’t really just met, since Steve has been staring at Bucky’s face for two days on canvas. It feels natural, like they’ve been doing this a long time. 

“Tell ya what,” Bucky explains, as they gather up their things at the back tables where Bucky built his little practice dance floor. “Since it’s my fault you got into this mess, how about you come to my place. It’s not too far. I got a couch just your size.”

Steve snorts. Every couch is just his size, but they are already several blocks away, walking in the remembered rhythm of all that fantastic jazz, before Steve pulls up to a sudden stop. “Your place?”

Bucky takes another drag of his cigarette and shrugs. He’s wearing his jacket and his scarf, but his heavy wool coat is draped around Steve’s shoulders. Bucky’d complained about being hot after they’d stepped out of the dance hall’s warm glow, and Steve had already been shivering as soon as his sweat started to cool in the frosty December air. It’d been perfectly natural for Bucky to just drop it on Steve’s back, like it was something they’d already agreed to ahead of time. 

Bucky blows out a puff of smoke, straight up, giving Steve a glimpse of his long, pale throat over the soft blue wool of his scarf. “Sure, why not?”

“You don’t even know me,” Steve argues. “I could be a murderer or something.” 

Bucky hums with a thoughtful frown. “You’re right, and I’ve seen you fight. You might clock me with that book bag.”

Steve’s heart shivers against a spike of panic that goes right through him, and he grasps at his messenger bag to make sure it’s still slung over his shoulder. He left it on one of the tables while they were dancing, like nothing more than an old hat, and only now remembers he actually fetched it by the time they left. Reckless, leaving something like that just lying around. Would anyone in forties-Brooklyn even know what to do with a laptop? Steve’s thoughts swirl with the possibilities of altered timelines, paradoxes, and a tempting glimpse at a future influenced by advancing technology while Bucky continues to smoke and make small talk as they walk.

“Arnie ain’t so bad,” Bucky is saying, and Steve’s ears perk up. Arnie was the man who he came across in the alley, what feels like a million years ago. “I warned him, you know? He went to this club. It’s uh, one for fellas like that. Dangerous, all being in one place I figure. One raid by the cops and that’s the end of it. Then of course when it happened Arnie gets sent up state. Some kind of institution where they make queers see straight. I don’t know. He was never the same after that. It ain’t right, what people do when you’re not like everybody else.”

‘ _They fixed me_ ,’ Arnie had stuttered out, when he was pleading with the bullies in the alley. Steve shivers and pulls Bucky’s coat closer. Unthinkably, conversion therapy still exists in Steve’s time, but it’s certainly not something the police would have a hand in. They are more like primeval lunatic asylums, where people are basically tortured into sniveling compliance.

“You think Mike and Ubby would think the same thing, though?” Steve bitterly wonders, because he’s tired and feels mean about the whole situation. His lip stings where Eddie’s friend had punched him and his hip aches where he’d hit the ground. If Bucky hadn’t come, maybe that gang would have killed him. “They’re your pals, but I bet they wouldn’t think I was so swell if they knew I was gay too.”

Bucky stops in his tracks, the cigarette drops from his lips and he jumps back with a hiss when sparks strike his knee. “Shit!” He stomps out the glowing cherry with his heel. “Damn, you just came right out and said it.” 

“Said what?” Steve stumbles off the curb, and snatches his elbow away when Bucky tries to catch it. There’s no traffic, and not many lights. It must be pretty late, but the streets are wet from fresh rain, and they’re probably lucky they are headed home in clear weather.

“That you’re...” Bucky visibly gulps than looks over his shoulder, following him across the street. “Like that.”

“Gay,” Steve repeats. He’s tired of this, tired of being in the past. He’s drunk and now more than a little bitter, tired, and it turns out that the movies lied, and time travel kind of sucks. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes!” Bucky blurts out, then raises his hands defensively. “I mean, not on account of _me_ , but you don’t go saying shit like that out loud. Pride ain’t worth getting killed over.”

“I was in the closet long enough in high school, I’m not going back in it now.”

Bucky whistles, shaking his head in defeat. “Man. I wish I had half your guts. I knew it when I saw you shout at Eddie and those guys. This little kid is gonna’ get himself beat to death, and all I was gonna’ do was watch?” 

Steve glances up. They’re walking again, but suddenly Bucky’s good humor vanishes and his sarcasm takes on a maudlin tone.

“Some soldier I’d be,” he grumbles. “How am I supposed to fight the Germans if I can’t even stick up for my neighbor?” 

“Ah,” Steve huffs out, and his face warms at the thought. “That’s what this is all about. The hot dogs, the dancing. The best night of my life.” 

Bucky snickers. “Figured me out, Steve Rogers. Maybe I feel like I owe that little guy somethin’, seein’ as how he’s too dumb to run away from a fight, and taught me how to be dumb enough to run into one.” 

Steve lets out a hopeless laugh. “Being scared and fighting anyway? Joining a war to take on the biggest bullies in the world? That’s not dumb. You’re gonna’ be a great soldier.”

“And you’re _drunk_ ,” Bucky snerks, and all Steve can do is laugh, because he _is_ drunk but he doesn’t care.

“So where is your place?” Steve finally asks, taking a look around when he realizes they haven’t been walking for a while and Bucky shakes his head. 

“You really _are_ drunk!” Bucky chuckles. “We’ve been standing outside my apartment for ten minutes. Come on! Let’s get you warmed up.”

No need, Steve thinks, heat blossoming in his chest. Just being near Bucky Barnes seems to do the trick.


	10. New York December 8 1941 - Who the Hell is Bucky?

Bucky’s apartment is small, even by New York standards. Steve catches himself thinking so, and wonders if _forties_ New York standards means this place is huge. There is a single bathroom shared by all the apartments on his floor, right next to the one phone that Bucky proudly points out is free to use for local calls. The combination living, dining, and bedroom is cluttered but clean, with bookcases standing between mismatched furniture to divide the small space. Rugs are spread out in a hodgepodge of bright colors across the floor, and books are stacked in every corner of the room, deliberate and proud heaps of treasure. Bucky’s narrow bed is pushed up against the one large window that looks out onto an tragically bleak brick wall. A kitchenette sits in an alcove the size of a closet. 

And just like Bucky said, there is a sofa next to a wood burning stove, dark red with only one long cushion for a seat. It looks so comfortable Steve might just fall into it face first. 

“Whoa there,” Bucky says in a soft voice as the room lists hard to port, and Steve is guided upright with a gentle nudge. Bucky takes Steve’s coat—or rather, Bucky takes his _own_ coat back—and Steve stumbles over his own feet towards the couch. He stops short when he notices the top book on the nearest towering stack has the words _500 Years of Art and Illustration_ stamped on the cover.

“Nice reference,” Steve mumbles, catching sight of the history’s most influential etchings immediately as he absently thumbs through the pages.

“Hmm?” Bucky looks over his shoulder, from where he hangs his coat, hat and scarf on a stand by the front door. “Oh. Yeah, I get to borrow a lot from work.” 

Bucky must work in a library, Steve assumes as he picks up another volume, this one on _Da Vinci’s War Machines_ , and quickly sees another titled _Dutch Masters: Virtuosos of Light and Color_. A sudden thought occurs to Steve, and he looks around the apartment for any signs of artist’s tools. “Do you paint?”

Bucky gives a shy little laugh, different than his cocksure attitude from the dance hall. “Me? Naw. I couldn’t draw my way out of a box.” He stretches his arms over his head before he sets to work unbuttoning his vest. “Just like the history, I guess.”

Well, there goes that theory out the window; Bucky didn’t paint his own portrait. Whomever painted _The Winter Soldier_ has to be a master of classical technique, knowing precisely how to layer enough glazes so that the soldier’s skin glows from within the canvas, eyes bright pinpoints of blazing blue.

“Your eyes aren’t as blue as I thought they’d be. In real life…” Steve thinks, then sits down hard on the sofa when he realizes he said that out loud.

“Thanks a lot, pal,” Bucky says, but isn’t offended. Instead, Bucky hooks a finger into his tie and joins Steve at the couch while he yanks out the knot. “I gotta admit, I noticed yours are pretty blue.”

Oh _shit_ , Steve realizes as the breath catches in his throat and he looks up from the book in his hands to find Bucky leaning in close. Bucky is _flirting_ with him. Bucky’s _been_ flirting with him all night! Steve took him for straight as a damn arrow when they first met, that all that stuff about showing Steve a good time had been just Bucky’s way of making up for a misplaced sense of guilt, failing to act against a gang of thugs until Steve’d jumped in to defend his neighbor. Bucky never made any allusions that he himself was— _fuck it._

Steve grabs Bucky by the collar. Bucky’s wordless shout of surprise is swallowed up when Steve rises up onto his knees to meet Bucky’s mouth with his own. The alcohol flavored kiss is sloppy and wet, and doesn’t quite wind up where Steve expects. He nearly loses his balance, but Bucky quickly takes over and saves them both from falling off the cushions. Unlike Steve, Bucky is sober enough to accomplish something here, and slides one hand into the small of Steve’s back, while the other braces against the back of the couch. They both remain on their knees after that, perched on the edge of the cushion, bodies pressed flush against each other while Steve keeps ahold of Bucky’s shirt collar with both hands. Some irrational thought tells him that Bucky might get away from him if he doesn’t keep that stiff fabric twisted in his hungry fists.

“Steve, Stevie,” Bucky gasps, and Steve can taste the whiskey on his tongue. And tobacco. “This ain’t a good idea.”

He’s right. It’s not a good idea. Steve doesn’t know what’s happened to him, doesn’t know how he got here or how he’s getting back. He knows Bucky is swirling at the heart of something big, something that’s cracked open the laws of space and time or at least his own sanity. The logical part of Steve’s brain that hasn’t completely been drowned out in ecstasy or alcohol is rambling on about having condoms and responsibilities. Steve wants to prove that motherfucker dead wrong.

“Don’t care,” he gasps, and Bucky’s hand slides down his back to cup his ass as his hips give a hint of a thrust that strikes Steve’s belly like lightning.

Then all at once Bucky slows down, and pulls back with a curious little humm. “What’s this?” he mumbles, slipping Steve’s phone out of his back pocket. He glances down at the slice of shiny black plastic, turns it over to see the Vitruvian Man printed on the phone’s protective case. Bucky laughs when he flicks the ring holder out from the man’s crotch. “Okay. So you’re a fan of—”

He turns it back over, and the motion lights up the display. The clock reads ‘ _4:00_ ’ right above the words ‘ _No Service’_. Steve’s battery life is at thirty percent.

“Shit…” Steve says. He wants to slap the phone out of Bucky’s hands, to shove it back in his pocket and tell him to mind his own beeswax and get back to kissing him, but his hands are tangled up in Bucky’s shirt collar and now the room sways as he gazes down at the bizarre reminder of his current adventure.

“Fancy watch,” Bucky mumbles, turning it around in his hand. “But the time’s wrong.” His thumb finds the home button and the numbers requesting a passcode bloom onto the screen. “What the–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says, a little cranky. He sweeps his hand down Bucky’s arm, urging the cellphone out of his grip and tucking it back into his pocket where it belongs. “Where were we?”

Steve expects Bucky to laugh or roll his eyes, but he’s still giving a thoughtful frown in the general direction of Steve’s back pocket, no longer interested in that pleasant handful he had taken of Steve’s ass. “What was that? Never seen anything like it.” 

“Nothing. Weren’t you in the middle of something?” Steve shakes his head, and nearly collapses back into the couch cushions when the room tosses and turns. He knows he’s too drunk to be sexy, but even if he were sober he’d not be nearly as good at flirting as Bucky. “You were proving to me that Bucky Barnes keeps his word, I think.” 

This time Bucky does laugh, and Steve almost cackles at how easy it is to play to Bucky’s vanity when he drapes his arms over Bucky’s firm shoulders and pulls him down with him.

“Yeah, alright. Keep your secrets.” Bucky is wise to Steve’s game, but he eases Steve down anyway. It’s safer this way, no longer daring gravity to knock them off the couch, and Bucky drops down to kiss the side of Steve’s neck. Bucky’s hot breath puffs against the hinge of Steve’s jaw, then trails further down as his clever fingers work open the buttons on Steve’s shirt. It’s nice, so much nicer now that Steve doesn’t have to worry about falling over. Bucky really does know what he’s doing. It’s great. It’s _perfect_. Steve swims in the zing of pleasure from every damp spot Bucky leaves behind, from the weight of his body, half-covering Steve’s own.

Steve lets out a moan when Bucky’s tongue grazes the edge of his ear, which quickly turns into a pout when Bucky suddenly stops.

“Mm, what’s this?”

Steve’s mind stutters, like a hiccup, because he immediately knows what caught Bucky’s curiosity. Steve’s hair is just long enough to hide his behind-the-ear hearing aids, which are flesh toned besides, but now Bucky is staring right at them. 

When were digital hearing aids invented? When was digital- _anything_ invented, for that matter?

“Hearing aids,” Steve mumbles, because he can’t come up with a creative excuse. “I got infections when I was little. My hearing’s about sixty percent in my left ear, seventy in my right.” 

“How do these help?” Bucky says, and Steve feels a tremor of delight when Bucky’s hand brushes his hair away from his ear. “They look like they just plug ‘em up.” 

Steve feels a spike of annoyance and strokes Bucky’s chin. He knows being drunk makes him bold and impatient, with the added side effect of not giving a shit. “I can hear jus’ fine,” he argues. “Now take off my pants. I’m too drunk to deal with this.” 

“Oh,” Bucky says, takes a deep breath, then pulls away. Steve shivers in the immediate chill he leaves behind. “ _That_ kinda drunk, huh?”

“I don’t mind,” Steve argues. He tries to blink away his drunkenness but probably accomplishes little more than an imitation of a bewildered owl so Bucky hardly looks convinced. 

Instead, Bucky relaxes against the arm of the couch while Steve stays flat on his back, too helpless to follow, even though he’s pretty sure that’s the edge of his laptop digging into his hip since the strap wound up tangled around his waist. “Look, I know it always seems like a swell time,” he says, gazing down at the arm of the sofa, picking at a loose thread in the upholstery. There it is again, that hint of shyness. Bucky is really adorable in these vulnerable moments. “But I don’t want to be anyone’s mistake when they wake up in the morning.”

“Ahhhh, shit,” Steve sighs out, but it quickly turns into a yawn. Bucky puts a hand on his knee, a gesture like a consoling pat, and Steve is drowsy enough that he doesn’t really mind that Bucky just rejected him. “Yeah, okay,” Steve finally confesses. “Probably smart.” 

Bucky rewards Steve a warm smile, a new one that he hasn’t seen yet tonight. It lingers between them, comfortable, just where it belongs. Then Bucky stretches and gets to his feet. “I had a good time, Steve. I, uh. I’ll make pancakes in the morning. My ma’s own recipe.” Bucky draws his bottom lip between his teeth, then his cocky smile returns. “Did I manage to keep my word? Best night of your life, right?”

“You’ll find out in the morning,” Steve says, and hopes he gives something like a suggestive bedroom smile, but one of his eyes shuts while the other one awkwardly stays open and Bucky just laughs at him. It isn’t mean, just a friendly reminder that Steve really is too drunk for anything more tonight. 

Bucky leaves for a minute, and Steve already starts to doze by the time he returns with a heavy quilt and a pillow that crinkles against Steve’s hearing aids with crisp feathers. He vaguely hears Bucky mumble something about Steve being raised in a barn, but Steve doesn’t have anything left with to fire back while Bucky pulls off his boots. Steve should have really done that before climbing onto the couch, and he really has to give his ears a rest from wearing his hearing aids. It’ll hurt like crazy to wake up after leaving them in, but— 

—That’s the last thing Steve remembers, before pain shoots up his elbow and his eyes open wide against a cold, hard floor. “Fuck? What the...” His voice is promptly thrown back down his own throat, blocked by something slick and rubbery against his face. He scrambles up, bangs his head against the bottom of a tabletop, throws the broken handle of a paintbrush to the floor, and rips a respirator off his face. Steve gasps, filling his aching lungs with air as the lights of his lab flicker back on. The smell of turpentine makes his eyes water, and he looks around to figure out just what the fuck is going on, picking up details like collecting broken bits of memory.

The large, orange ventilation hose is humming nearby. Steve’s workbench is dotted with wads of stained cotton, the solvent waiting on a tray where it oozes its cloying, tangy fumes from an open glass bottle. Steve spots a shard of his paintbrush at the foot of the easel, and collects it along with the piece he dropped when he pulled the respirator off. He must have been working on the painting and passed out, after skipping meals and proper rest. Steve looks up at _The Winter Soldier_ , hovering above him, and sees clear evidence that the varnish layer has been stripped.

The soldier’s skin, which had appeared golden under the yellowed varnish, is now revealed to have deep blue undertones, giving the young subject a frigid look. Steve had been right about one thing, and the skyline of the village beyond the field is now clear enough to make out a train, awaiting passengers at the station visible at the front of it. The soldier’s cigarette is oddly extinguished, the cherry darkened and no hint of the fine wisp of smoke that Steve had noted before. Odd that such a detail would have come through only in the decayed varnish. Maybe the painting’s previous owner had wanted to do this maudlin soldier a favor by lighting it for him, and had added the glowing tip over the varnish layer. 

At least it’s no surprise why he woke up wearing the respirator—and evidently his lab coat—since turpentine fumes are so toxic he almost always uses one when he works with it. Steve slowly makes his way up, joints creaking all the way, then hisses when a fresh slice of pain zips across his mouth. He gently prods his lower lip, finds a stinging, swollen cut, and the brief image of a suckerpunch flits through his memory. 

That doesn’t make any sense. Who could have punched him if he never left the museum? He must of split it when he’d hit the cement floor. Steve groans when he stretches his back out, and his head swims. He’s probably still drunk on fumes, but why on earth is he working with his bag hanging off his shoulder? “What the fucking hell…” Steve wriggles his toes, socks sliding against the cement floor. Where the fuck are his boots? His head swims again, this time enough for him to sway into his work bench.

Time to go home.

Steve caps the turpentine, returns the rest of his equipment to their proper place in locked metal supply cabinets, takes a snapshot of the painting’s progress for his report, then covers _The Winter Soldier_ for the night. He walks in his socked feet to the curb where he flags down his Uber, and happily accepts the thirty-five dollar charge to drive him all the way to Brooklyn. At four-thirty in the morning, it’s hardly worth risking ringworm on public transportation with no shoes, if he can just sit in the mild ass-end of nighttime traffic and doze all the way home. Plus, he feels off-balance, sloppy and feverish, so maybe he’d hit his head on the way down or hasn’t quite recovered from the turpentine fumes that somehow made it through his respirator. 

There is no way to measure how utterly exhausted Steve is by the time he shoves through his front door, but he also hasn’t left work for almost forty eight hours. His shirt can probably stand up on its own at this point. His hamper is overflowing, so he shoves a load in his washer along with his rumpled outfit and lets it be tomorrow’s problem while he takes a much needed shower. The steamy water burns away the lingering drunken spin on his thoughts, and soothes the ache behind his poor ears. They turned bright, angry red as soon as he finally removed his BTEs, punishing him for being so careless to sleep in them twice in a row. He sends a quick note to Peggy that he’s coming in late, nothing too specific because he thinks he might be out for a month, then collapses naked and dripping wet on his warm bed and sleeps like the dead.

No dreams come to him, but by the time Steve wakes up, feeling more refreshed than he has all week, there is something nagging the back of his mind, a lingering sensation of dancing through some kind of nighttime fantasy, his body missing the embrace of an expected companion. 

Also, morning wood that is so sensitive it’s painful to the touch, and Steve has to sit to pee even after it finally goes down.

What a week.

Steve rummages around his kitchen for something to eat while his completely dead phone battery charges on the counter, and settles on a bowl of yogurt with granola while he boots his laptop. It’s almost two in the afternoon, perfectly reasonable hour for breakfast after crashing near five in the morning, but it’s still a shame to have spent most of his Saturday sleeping. Steve reads through his emails, follows up on a few administrative tasks he can do from home, and updates Peggy on his weekend schedule. After his phone restarts, he winces when he sees what looks like very, _very_ drunk texting to his boss: 

[4:42 am] >> Stripped vanish from solder. Tupperware fumes knocked me off. Going to get something rest. Still coming in him tomorrow. Banner.

It takes a few passes for Steve to decipher his own words, and comes to the conclusion that he should never let predictive-text fill in his messages again. At least Peggy tends to have a good sense of humor about this sort of thing, but he can’t imagine her making the same mistake with her perfect English punctuation and tact. Steve is just about finished with his summary report of the painting status, when he does a double take at the photo of _Winter_ he’d taken the night before—or earlier that morning, if he’s keeping count. 

There’s the reminder of the things Steve had noticed when he first dragged himself up from the floor: the town revealed in the background, the extinguished cigarette, and the color palette of the soldier’s skin. Now, something else jumps out besides all that, something he hadn’t caught when he was exhausted and sick on turpentine fumes. The dented, rusty bicycle leaning on the wall behind the soldier has waxed canvas panniers, the kind that might have carried mail or groceries back in the forties. Now that the dark amber varnish has been washed away with cotton swabs and solvent, Steve can clearly make out the cover of one of the books beneath the pannier’s flap, which lies crooked and loose over the bulk within. The book is the color of oxblood, which stands out from the drab threads of the canvas bags on it’s own, but even more striking is the dark star on its leather cover.

Steve frowns, zooms in on the photo to see the delicate lines of white, slicing across the star’s outside edge to give it a hint of depth, as if it were embossed. The star itself is wholly black, not the mixed dark hues in the painting’s shadowy edges, or the blue tinted shadows of the buildings in the distance. A rich, true black, blacker than anything else in the painting, stands out like a bullseye. 

“Huh,” Steve murmurs to himself, adds a single bullet point about it to his report, and hits ‘send.’ 

Steve pokes his nose into his washer before he leaves, finally remembers to check his pockets before he loads it up with detergent and lets it go while he’s at work. He rescues a few coins and his keys (so that’s where they went), plus finds a slip of paper in his jean’s pocket. It’s too stiff to be a receipt, and he pauses with an odd feeling of deja vu when he turns it over to find the words _Fresco’s_ and _Dancing To Nite_ stamped on the cover in scrawling calligraphy. Inside are numbered lines, each one preceded with the names of familiar dances. Waltz, foxtrot, two-step and more, all of them blank until Steve gets to Lindy Hop on line seventeen, with the name ‘Bucky’ scratched into place in pencil.

“Huh,” Steve says again, turning the card over to find it has a blank back and no other discerning features. “Who the hell is Bucky...”

The name doesn’t ring a bell.


	11. Different Wavelengths

“Do you know how long it was actually frozen?” Bruce asks, staring intently at the painting through his monitor. It’s on the test bed, hermetically sealed behind a thick pane of glass. A red light above the room’s single door indicates the radiation inside is live.

“We don’t actually know,” Steve says, feeling unusually nervous about leaving the painting in the room. He shouldn’t be, he’s done this dozens of times in the past, but after the disaster on Friday the canvas feels particularly vulnerable and Steve has to stop himself from pacing behind Banner’s chair. “Supposedly, the painting’s been there since 1945, and the vault flooded sometime during the cold war. How many times it froze and thawed though, and how long it was frozen solid before they pulled it out… It’s anyone’s guess.”

“Mm,” Bruce mumbles, then pulls off his glasses and scratches through his salt and pepper curls in a nervous gesture. “I might be able to help with that. Nothing can entirely arrest nuclear decay, but hitting the freezing point will make it slow down, like a hiccup. If I test for the usual gamma rays, the particular emulsion pattern might indicate periods of frost and thaw.” 

Steve nods along. This is why Doctor Bruce Banner is a genius. “Here I was hoping you could help identify a few colors.”

Bruce does a double take, then tilts his face back into his glasses. “Oh. Do you want me to just stick with the usual?” He doesn't pick up on sarcasm, which Steve had always found confusing before he’d finally realized the man usually only half listens, while half thinking of his work, at all times. Steve shakes his head to reassure him.

“The more you can tell me about this painting the better. It’s a high profile project for us.” Steve doesn’t mention that he already almost tanked his career by letting the canvas wilt, and would love for a chance to make up for that with some unexpected breakthrough, even though Peggy is the only one who knows about it. “One thing I’m really curious about is that book,” he adds, pointing it out on the monitor. “The black star is really true, which isn’t common for a painting this old. Carbon black would have been typical for the time the painter was trying to reproduce, but it’d never be so rich, especially after stripping the varnish.”

“Well, if it’s made with something reactive then we’ll find it.” Bruce wheels his chair around to his computer, types in a command, the room on the other side of the glass goes completely dark for half a second, and then it’s over. “I’ll have the gel ready tomorrow afternoon,” he says with a soft smile. “I’ll just email the results.” 

Seeing him so pleased to run extracurricular projects for the Met makes Steve wonder how Bruce usually spends his weekends, but he’s infinitely grateful. The lab is usually reserved for forensic science and government projects, leaving Steve scrapping for appointments months in advance. Now, Steve has just over a week left for his impossible task, but hopefully this last x-ray will help fill in the blanks of _The Winter Soldier_ ’s bizarre provenance. 

Luis helps Steve return the painting to its crate, and they climb into the cab of the Met’s truck, which is designed specifically for transporting artwork and not much else. It’s an unmarked armored vehicle with uncomfortable seats, and requires a special license to operate. The few times Steve has had to reserve it, he’s been forced to ride along, bouncing around in that high front seat like a little kid. Luckily, Luis is always happy to volunteer to drive on these off site errands, and Steve counts his blessings. There’s a certain solidarity that Steve feels with the guard, not just because of Luis’ impeccable taste in modern art, but especially after becoming partners in (what feels like) crime after re-stretching that canvas.

Steve glances back through the barred window into the truck’s dark hold, catching side of _Winter_ ’s crate. Transporting an oil painting is never easy, but he hates that he had to crate up _Winter_ without the protective layer of varnish. It helps generate a complete chromograph, but it makes Steve nervous to think of the delicate, reactive tissue touching the raw oil and can’t wait to clean it from the canvas as soon as they get back. 

“How’s our little homie doing, little homie?” Luis says, eyes still on the road. 

“Hm? Fine. Why?” 

“You keep lookin’,” Luis explains with an exaggerated shrug. “Makes me think you know something I don’t. This one special to you? You look at it like some guy is eyeing your... _guy_.”

“Oh. Am I?” Steve knows full well that he’s been sneaking glances through that tiny window like an eager child staring at cookies through an oven door, but he didn’t realize he was being so obvious about it. Then again, Luis isn’t a security guard for nothing. “I guess I’ve been putting a lot of hours into it. Always makes me nervous to take works out of the building. This one, though...” Steve shakes his head, unable to find the words. “This one is something else.” 

“I feel ya,” Luis says with a nod, exiting the highway. “When you know, you know.” 

It’s not far to the Met’s docking bay, but traffic is sluggish enough that Steve has a good few minutes for that to fly over his head, bounce around a bit, and settle before it finally hits him.

“Wait, what do you mean by that? ‘When you know, you know’? Sounds like you’re talking about soulmates.”

“No doubt. _Number 14, 1960_ ,” Luis answers, as if that explains everything. The numbers are familiar enough that Steve’s internal catalogue flips through to the ‘R’ section. 

“Rothko?”

“Sublime, brah,” Luis says, shaking his head as if finding that moment of revelation all over again. “I always thought of myself as a neo-cubist sorta guy, but I went to the MOMA—the one in Frisco, not the one here—with my cousin Ignacio, and there it was. My man Rothko breaks down the outside world, gets you thinking in a metaphysical plane. _Number 14, 1960._ That shit speaks to me. Soulmates, you feel me?”

Steve doesn’t answer right away. It’s easy enough to write off the cliche idea of falling in love with a painting, but there is some ring of truth to Luis’ claim. Art—paintings in particular—have a way of taking hold of people, of twisting them up inside and setting up camp. Obsessed collectors have all experienced this at one point or another. There’s a certain amount of power within the cultural property of a community’s art, strong enough that even governments realize when it’s time to invest deeply into national galleries and expand efforts to bring the works of their local artists home.

It’s not exactly a phenomenon Steve has been sentimental enough to fall for. Masterpieces inspire him, delight him, make him marvel at the artists’ vision and craft and creativity. Steve has wondered about the _Mona Lisa_ , has been dazzled by Vermeer’s _Astronomer_ , has felt the judgement of the girl in a white dress in _The Night Watch_. But to go so far as to call a painting a soulmate? As if there were only one painting intended for him, Steve Rogers, within the whole of the world’s art?

“You live on the opposite side of the country as your soulmate,” Steve finally says, challenging Luis’ hypothesis with a roll of his eyes. “ _No. 14_ is part of SF MOMA’s permanent collection.” Steve can’t approach the topic with anything other than irony, but Luis is unphased. 

“Love knows no distance, brah.” Luis declares. “That’s not how shit works.”

Before long, _The Winter Soldier_ is installed back in Steve’s lab, free from his travel crate but draped again as Steve starts organizing his files to go into his restoration plan. Now that he’s stripped the varnish and plodded through all his x-rays, he’s ready to take a closer study of the painting’s condition and present Shield’s with options for next steps. 

Steve’s template plan is simple enough to fill in. He starts with materials, as well as their modern-day equivalent. He walks through any required stripping, structural repairs such as tears or losses, expected setting times, and ends with mounting, presentation and framing. He makes sure to include plenty of photos along the way to illustrate the finer points. It’s a bit like constructing a very thorough recipe for a cookbook, and the end result is promised to be a fully finished dish served up to the client—in this case Alexander Pierce.

Steve sets to work on his notes from the week. Conservation is an exact science, and he has to include chemical resources and citations for each step. Steve leaves his hearing aids on his desk while he works, and chews on the wire to his earbuds as soft rain noise plays on loop over his phone. It’s the only thing he can listen to when he needs to concentrate, since his mismatched hearing tends to do strange things to music without his BTEs, cord chewing is optional though. He winds up looking through his earlier x-rays of the painting a few times, baffled by what he finds. 

The most frustrating element of this restoration isn’t the extremely brittle state of the painting itself, which he discovered when he and Luis re-stretched it. Being frozen arrested the molecular cohesion of the linseed-based paint, and if he isn’t careful, the paint layers might flake off like a dry scab. It will pose a particularly difficult challenge when he has to fill in the losses in the brick wall and the empty field, since the new paint will want to stick and pull up the old, but that job won’t be impossible.

The real problem is actually in those freshly rendered x-rays. In his initial sampling, Steve found so much variance—all the different depths of the imagery capture that allows him to view the image layer by layer—that he winds up running a second series, this time scanning at higher resolution. Oil painting is unique in that it allows the artist to add new layers to a dried work, altering it with little evidence in the final image that there had ever been any difference. Even the Renaissance masters would paint over older drafts, changing an urn for a vase of flowers, removing figures from the background that didn’t suit their composition, or change the pose of their model’s hands or costumes. 

In the case of _The Winter Soldier_ , everything in the picture shifts and changes as the x-rays dive deeper into the paint, reducing the brick wall behind the soldier to rubble in one layer, only to build it back up in another, moving the green bicycle from the right side to the left, then taking it away altogether, along with the panniers and it’s mysterious starred book.

As Steve scrolls through the images, like a flip book that delves through the strata of paint, layer after layer of alterations, corrections, and revisions to the soldier himself are revealed as well. It seems like he’s suffered as much as the rest of the scene, painted over several times, in different costumes, with clear evidence that his hair was nearly down to his shoulders in one version with a shadow around that sharp chin that suggests he’d even sported a short beard. Steve’s gut churns when he flips back and forth between two nearly identical layers, only to find the soldier’s left arm had been removed and added back in at one point.

“Ouch,” he mumbles, and drops his chin on his hand. “You’ve had a lot of adventures.” 

It’s like there’s at least three distinct soldiers here. One shaggy and unkempt, one with a missing arm, and the last, the one visible to the naked eye, a dandy boldly smiling in the face of his hidden trauma. Steve wonders how the artist decided to show that soldier in their final version, to have that one be locked into place with a layer of varnish and passed down until it landed in Karpov’s vault.

Steve spends a long time snapshotting and re-ordering the x-rays, making sure to take at least one break to collect an overpriced sandwich from the Balcony Cafe on the roof deck before it closed at 8:30. The turkey and swiss is nothing to shout about, but he knows better than to let himself work hungry again and the salty chips he picks up with it are fun to crunch on while he listens to the algorithmic rainfall and tries to make sense of the jumble he’s come across.

There’s a few options to consider when it comes to salvaging the layers, and he tries to explicitly identify at least three distinct paintings in his detailed restoration plan before he calls it a night. He’ll need Bruce’s results before he finalizes everything for Shield’s review, but at least he’s got most of the way there. 

It’s hard for him to avoid making anything that sounds like a recommendation, despite the fact that he can’t help but feel like whoever painted this never intended to reveal the depths of the soldier’s suffering. That isn’t his call to make. Deciding which version of this soldier to uncover, what layers to strip away and which to seal off with fresh varnish will be up to Alexander Pierce. Steve glances over to the white sheet that hides _The Winter Soldier_ , and wishes he could do better than that. Then he recalls Pierce’s condescending tone when the man had asked him, ‘ _what kind of artist doesn’t want to leave his own mark on the world?’_

Steve re-opens his draft file, but before he finishes typing, ‘In my professional opinion as a long time conservator and art historian,’ Peggy Carter walks into his lab. 

Steve yanks out his ear buds, face going hot as his heart leaps in surprise. “What?” he asks, when her voice echoes in his ear like she spoke through a tin can connected to his head with a string. “One sec,” he tells her, and collects his hearing aids.

“Sorry about that,” Peggy says. “I texted you but you didn’t answer. Deep in work on a Saturday again, I see.” 

Oh. Right. The Beaugureau copy already feels like a million years ago. It’s not like she could have expected this painting to get restored in two weeks without some weekend hours put in, so Steve shows all his teeth when he smiles and says in no uncertain terms, “I’m charging overtime on this one.”

“Of course,” Peggy says with a quick nod, but Steve’s sass falls short of making an impression and she moves on. “I actually need to speak to you about something else.”

Steve glances up from his monitor, picking up immediately on the tension that suddenly fills the room. “What? What’s going on?” 

Peggy opens her mouth, glances behind her, and seems to rethink what she was about to say. “Have you sent your restoration plan out yet?” 

“No. I was waiting for the chromograph from Dr. Banner’s lab. He said he might be able to identify how long it was—”

“That’s fine,” she interrupts, quickly glancing back over her shoulder again. Steve follows her gaze, can see the dim evening lights still on in the hallway on the other side of the glass. “I want you to start sending me your reports first, before you forward them to Shield’s alias.” 

Steve is quiet for exactly three heartbeats, which is how long it takes him to decide whether he’s going to call his boss out for being dishonest or not. Peggy is a politician. Like she did with the Beaugureau, like she did with Steve’s mistake, her first priority is always to protect her interests, and the interests of her department, of her museum. She’s good at what she does, some might even call her ruthless, which in the art world is probably necessary to become any sort of authority figure. Even though Steve sometimes challenges her decisions, like he did with the Beaugureau and his mistake, he knows when to get out of her way and let her do her job. 

This is not Peggy’s job though. This is something else. 

“What’s going on?” he finally asks, and the look on her face tells him she was dreading the moment he’d dig his heels in. So he digs his heels in harder. “Peg. What is it?”

“I wanted to protect you from this, but who am I kidding? You’d find a way to jump in this fight no matter what I said.” 

“Fight?” 

Peggy blows out a measured breath, leaning forward with her fists on her hips, like she has to brace herself against the physical pain of her words. “I mentioned my niece wrote that Times article.” Steve nods. “She’s been investigating Shield’s for years, actually. Apparently, something in their history as a great underground railroad for Jews fleeing Nazi occupied territory isn’t exactly on the up and up.”

Steve’s mouth drops. “Oh.” He remembers her previous articles, had come across them when he first learned of the project, but hadn’t given much thought to the idea that she’s looking for something bad in the famous auction house’s otherwise spotless history.

“I rather mucked it all up when I took on the restoration,” Peggy sighs, her shoulders sagging now that the confession is made. “If I had known, I never would have brought this painting under our roof,” she bitterly adds.

“Why didn’t Sharon tell you sooner?” Steve says. “What changed?” 

Peggy steps over to the white sheet, and lifts one corner to reveal the bicycle, the pannier and the red, starred book. “This journal,” she starts. “I saw it in the report you sent this afternoon. I’ve been comparing notes with Sharon ever since she told me about the discovery, and as soon as she saw it, she recognized it from her research.” 

“I sent that report to Shield’s,” Steve explains, eyes locked on that black star. How is it that he knew something about it was off, just from one glance at the paint? He shakes his head, trying to think of more useful questions. “Why is it special? What is it?” 

“That’s just the thing. We don’t know yet. It’s described in a few records she’s found, there’s something very, very valuable about it. Do you remember Phil Coulson? He was working with Sharon and suddenly disappeared, and my intuition also can’t help but point that that as soon as that journal showed up in your reports—”

“So did Pierce.”

Peggy nods. “I want you to be very careful. We’re going to go ahead and say that it’s standard procedure for you to submit your restoration plans for my approval before they go out to a client. In the meantime, I’ll forward the vault inventory that Sharon uncovered your way. You’re good at digging to the bottom of things, so hopefully you can spot something we’ve missed.”

Steve swallows, and watches the teased corner of the painting vanish again under the sheet when Peggy drops it. “Steve,” she says, and the sudden change in her tone brings his attention back to her. “I want you to let them have it if they come for it. Don’t let them think we’re protective.”

Steve agrees, without argument, thinking about Brock & Jock and how all those muscles and all those scars aren’t so comical anymore. Either one of them could probably crush Steve’s throat in one, meaty fist, and not break a sweat.

What have they gotten into?


	12. Solid

Steve has the strangest craving for hot dogs as he heads home, and can’t believe his luck when he catches sight of a cart at the end of his usual walk out of the park. It’s not like it’s ever impossible to find a hot dog vendor after ten o’clock at night, but at least this way he doesn’t have to go hunt one down. He finishes stuffing the salty, mustard laden beef frank in his mouth before he reaches the subway gates, then promptly falls into a food coma on the train as it rattles along towards Brooklyn. It’s not as miserably late as his commute the night before, but he’s still fighting exhaustion after an entire week of long hours and maybe one or two skipped meals. 

A group of rowdy teenagers startle him back awake, and he tries to think about work to keep himself from nodding off again. He’s not thrilled by the prospect of missing his stop (again), or winding up god knows where down the line. Tomorrow, he’ll have Bruce’s results, he’ll finish his restoration plan, and… then what? Send it to Peggy and hope whatever it is she’s found out about Shield’s doesn’t lead to something dangerous? Steve considers the soldier in the painting; he’s really unfairly caught up in all this too. Steve’s pulls out his phone, and despite the fact that the mobile website for the New York State Military History Museum is a disaster, manages to find the museum’s hours and a phone number. There is no listed email address or contact form, since clearly this site had been dragged out of Geocities 1999 edition. 

Unfortunately, the museum closed on both Sunday and Monday, but Steve figures he may as well give that phone number a shot. Ever since Luis had asked if that soldier might still be alive, assuming he must be a real person, Steve has had an urge to chase that thread. Steve’s professional expertise is in oil paintings, and his speciality in pre-impressionist work. He’s conditioned his eye for tronie portraits of the Dutch masters, images that were startling human, but not intended to record the likeness of an actual, living person. Either that or religious scenes, icons of saints and people never intended to be considered mortal. Kings and duchesses and Napoleon had their portraits painted. Not foot soldiers, not scared young men looking forward to going back home.

Steve took the subject at the heart of _The Winter Soldier_ as a character, symbolic of a celebrated yet devastating war, but that’s his classical mind at work. Luis saw the human in the painting immediately, and as a fan of painters who oftentimes put their very own friends in their work, proud to celebrate them as individuals, the question in Luis’ mind wasn’t if the soldier was real but what might have become of him. 

That’s a good question. Steve smiles, thinking of an old woman who finds a miraculously intact nude of her younger self, recovered from the Titanic’s ancient wreck and asks in delight, _wasn’t I a dish?_ Of course, that was just a movie, but discoveries like that are known to happen. It’s well beyond the scope of his job, above and beyond what a restorer is expected to do, but if that red book is something so important, maybe the soldier is, too. 

Steve calls the number as soon as he walks through his front door, leaves a message on an answering service, and hopes for the best.

That night, Steve has ugly dreams. His teeth fall out as he tries desperately to varnish a blank canvas, barely holding a grip on the brush as molars and bicuspids pitter patter down on the stretched linen, like fat raindrops on an umbrella. Steve is more concerned about accidentally trapping his escaped teeth in the varnish and ruining the non-existent picture than he is about his own health. There’s no more specific detail than that, but throughout the dream he winds up with an overwhelming sensation to run for his life, but also desperately compelled to hunt for something else in turn, and gets lost attempting both tasks over and over again.

An asthma attack wakes him up. After a puff off his inhaler Steve collapses back in his big, empty bed and is left to sleep dreamlessly until morning. 

It takes a long time for him to realize the annoying sound chipping away at his sleep is his phone. He doesn’t even know why he bothers picking it up, since he doesn’t recognize the number, but some leftover anxiety from his terrible nightmares insists he needs to do his phone’s bidding and swipe-to-answer.

“This is Steve,” he garbles out. 

The voice on the other end is far too energetic for so early in the morning. “Steve Rogers? This is Major Sam Wilson. I’m a historian for the Military Museum in Saratoga Springs.”

Steve blinks. That was fast. Faster than he was ready for, by a long shot. 

“I got your message about identifying a soldier in a painting,” Major Sam Wilson goes on. “Is this a good time?” 

“You’re not supposed to be open today,” Steve blurts out, and actually catches what might be a laugh on the other end of the line, and quickly backtracks. “But yes! I need to get back to work anyway. It’s a great time.”

“Well, you mentioned the second world war uniform, so I’m going to assume this has something to do with that Russian art vault.” Sam Wilson doesn’t phrase it as question, but Steve confirms. “I figured that much out,” Wilson says, voice kicking up. “It must be pretty strange, finding a soldier’s portrait like that.” 

“Oh, it’s much more than a portrait,” Steve says. He wants to say more but doesn’t, still acutely aware of Shield’s non-disclosure agreement. Although, that admittedly seems a little stupid now that he’s found out they probably made Phil Coulson disappear. “It’s like a puzzle, all kinds of different layers with different versions of the same scene. It’d be a lot easier to understand if I could even pin down the exact date it was painted, which is almost impossible after all the damage. Getting frozen isn’t exactly standard wear and tear kinda stuff.” 

“Ah, I see. Track down the soldier and you got yourself a pretty solid number? Makes sense.” Steve could practically hear the sound of Major Wilson’s gears turning as he thinks it over. “We have some sketches that came in from someone’s grandfather. Drew portraits of his entire unit, but didn’t leave behind any names. We’ve been sharing them with veterans groups lately, posted them online, and have identified seven of the thirteen so far. Could the same thing work for him?”

Steve winces. “Shield’s won’t let us share pictures. I probably should have admitted this sooner but I’m also breaking their NDA right now. It’s stupid, but one of the terms of the Met taking on the repair.”

“Well, now that is a problem,” Wilson concludes dryly. “The next suggestion I had was for you to email me a couple pictures and I could get started flipping through our archives. Only authorized personnel are allowed.”

“What?” Steve’s heart sinks. “Why?” 

Major Wilson surprises him with a laugh. “Two excellent questions that the military happens to hate.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Steve mumbles, thinking through the potential loopholes and drawing a blank. “If we’re on the right track, and _The Winter Soldier_ was an actual person, then that would be the easiest way to date the painting, and figure out what some of these other messages are in the composition. This man must be an actual soldier.” Steve really only comes to that conclusion as he’s talking, and by now he’s hauled himself out of bed and started flipping through the photos on his computer. The tightness around the soldier’s eyes, the tension in his shoulders, the surprised parting of his lips. Those are human emotions, specific to this soldier’s life. Steve has no idea how he could have ever thought otherwise.

“Hmm,” Major Wilson considers. “So it’s more like a snapshot than some war metaphor?”

“Exactly,” Steve says, and gusts out a sigh, relieved he doesn’t have to explain it. “What if he has family? What if he’s _still alive_?”

“So he can tell Shield’s about their mystery painting?” Major Wilson reasons. “Act as a witness to prove their collection isn’t stolen?” 

Steve shakes his head even though he knows Wilson can’t see him. “So that he can tell his story,” Steve says. “There’s a lot more to him than his portrait. All Shield’s ordered from the Met is a restoration. This I’m doing on my own.”

The major goes quiet on the other end for a little while, those gears turning again as he thinks over Steve’s words. Steve figures he’s blown it, trying to get all righteous with a military officer who probably lives and breathes the same rules Steve’s planning to break. He’s never learned how to slow down when he gets going like this, but just when he’s about to consider hanging up and forgetting the whole thing, Major Wilson offers up a thoughtful hum. 

“Well, I can tell you, those sketches brought in a lot of attention to the value of maintaining military history. The best part of the job? Connecting people who got lost over the years. Our veterans deserve better than that. Identifying _The Winter Soldier_ would be a hell of a high profile nut to crack and if there’s one thing that gets the chain of command looking the other way, it’s so that they can pat themselves on the back.” 

“Somehow I get the impression that you made this call while the museum was closed on purpose,” Steve says with a grin, and leans back in his chair. Major Wilson, like Bruce, like Steve himself, is clearly a person who loves the work more than the job itself. “Maybe I could visit Monday. Unless it’s a problem that it’s closed, and all.” 

“Now, how would you get that idea?” Major Wilson innocently asks. “So. Oh-nine-hundred work for you?”

Steve takes down Major Wilson’s cell number and email address before hanging up, and once he does he just stares at his home screen for a few minutes, wondering how he possibly got the nerve. 

Who is he kidding? He would have done this even if Peggy hadn’t said a damn thing about disappearing art historians or dangerous clues left in layers of the painting’s beautiful glazes. He’s not sure exactly when it happened, but he needs to find out who this soldier is. Needs to know if he survived this war. Needs to know his name. 

Something stirs in the back of Steve’s mind, like fog shifting over a half-remembered dream. Cigarette smoke. The sound of happy laughter in perfect pitch, cutting through a rush of noise like the chime of a sweet bell. And dancing? When has Steve ever danced…?

A quiet alert chirps out of his computer, and he loads Bruce’s email to find the chromograph attached. It’s more revealing that Steve could have hoped. Not only does it identify the approximate age of the painting—somewhere in the ballpark between 1940 and 1945—but it shockingly reveals what Steve considers clear evidence that the different layers of the painting were applied years apart, probably by different artists altogether. The composition of the paints are varying, the trace elements indicating much more modern paints used for that left arm, all blended seamlessly to give the appearance of being one, cohesive image. This beautiful soldier was pieced together like Frankenstein’s monster, after whomever got their hands on the finished piece had their way.

Steve shakes his head, shuts his laptop and heads off to work, murmuring quiet disapproval at himself along the way.

“Getting in too deep, Rogers…” He says, though he doesn’t really believe it. He’s having fun, and so what if he’s falling a little bit in love with his conservation project? Collectors do it all the time, artists, restorers and conservators too. It isn’t a crime to like what you do for a living, to hurry through the staff entrance of the museum, to push the elevator buttons over and over again as if that would call down the car all the faster. Steve makes his way downstairs and tosses his jacket aside with his messenger bag while the overhead lights are still waking up. 

Instead of plugging his laptop into his docking station, opening up Bruce’s chromograph or even checking his email, Steve slides the sheet from _The Winter Soldier_ , and reminds himself what the real thing looks like. His first impression of that warm skin is still so strong that he’s startled by the soldier’s current pallor, and wonders if maybe the soldier was cold or sick when the portrait had been made. 

It’s impossible to tell what season it might have captured, since the darkened sky shows very little aside from a few specks of stars above. The village in the distant background also doesn’t give a clue, no smoke rising from the rectangular peaks of chimneys, no blazing fires obvious from this vantage point. The soldier himself is wearing his jacket open, his hat casting a dark shadow over his eyes, and even though he’d be wearing something heavier in the winter along the Western Front, he could be fresh from a bicycle ride, his skin picking up the chill while he’d sweated under his wool jacket. 

Steve shivers, looking at him, wishes he could do something more meaningful than try to track him down only now that seventy-five years have passed. The idea that he might have been caught with a chill on canvas, which was then later submerged and frozen in a Siberian vault, isn’t exactly fair. Steve figures he should check Bruce’s chromagraph, just in case there is another layer of warmer tones beneath this outer chill, like one last layer of ice Steve needs to get through before he reaches the real soldier beneath it.

The paint is thick and hard under his fingers, with only the slightest give when he touches it, like old rubber. That damn black star is cold and glossy, like a shard of obsidian. Steve lets his fingers linger on the texture of it, of the clear sensation of separation between the star’s sharp edges and the rougher paint on the book’s red cover, as if trying to read braille. Instead, all he picks up is an even stronger compulsion to solve this mystery himself. Alexander Pierce will never— 


	13. New York March 10, 1943 - To the Future

—Steve stops abruptly, as soon as he realizes he’s forgotten where he’d been headed. He looks down at his hands, then at the ground behind him, with the oddest sensation that he’s just dropped something. Then he presses his hands to his back pockets: his phone is there, but his wallet is not. Did he leave his messenger bag back at the lab? 

“Well, shit.” 

He’s on the sidewalk in front of an old timey movie theater, with big electric bulbs and black block letters announcing _The Wizard of Oz_. Steve glances up at the sky, because it’s strangely warm out for a November evening, then drops his gaze back down when the theater doors open up and people start emerging, laughing and tossing back the remains of their popcorn. 

Their clothes. Their hair. The way a young man crows out, “and your little dog, too!” and the girls with him shriek and bolt away from his teasing. Not a cellphone in sight. No one wearing jeans. Everyone lights up a cigarette.

Steve takes a step back, almost stumbles off the curb, and steadies himself as more people file out of the theater. It’s happening all over again, and the memories rush back all at once. The bullies in the ally, the terrifying bike ride over unfamiliar city streets, the recruitment office, dancing, drinking. Bucky. “Shit...” 

“Steve?”

The world threatens to spin along with him when Steve startles around at the sound of his name. Bucky looks nearly the same as Steve remembers, except now he wears a stunned expression and an army uniform. He has a red and white striped carton of popcorn in one hand, and a frankly beautiful girl stops alongside him before she takes his arm.

“Steve Rogers?” Bucky says again, more forcefully this time, and the girl on his arm smiles politely as they both wait for Steve to catch on. 

“Hey,” Steve answers dumbly, because he can’t take his eyes off Bucky’s uniform. It’s buttoned up, devoid of even the hint of wrinkles, tie nice and tight against his pale throat. It’s the exact same uniform Bucky only attempts to wear in _The Winter Soldier_ , down to the pins on his lapels. His hat is even jaunted off to the side, and Bucky lifts his beautiful cleft chin with a cautious smile, revealing those shining blue eyes. Steve swallows, remembering the taste of whiskey and cigarettes. “So the, uh. The recruiters got their forms restocked, I guess?” 

A flicker of confusion crosses Bucky’s face, but then someone bumps into Steve’s shoulder and gives him the stink eye as if Steve were the rude one for taking up too much space on the sidewalk. Steve would have told the guy to fuck off if he weren’t still so off kilter. He’s back—in the _past_. After having completely forgotten his first visit when he’d been in the future. 

_Fuck_.

Mostly, he just doesn't know what to say, even though that isn’t exactly a new thing for him. The last time he saw Bucky they’d been making out on his couch, and now here he is, surprising the guy on his… date.

Time travel really should be more physically disorienting than this; he would think being hurtled through space and time should be distracting enough that a little embarrassment would be no nevermind. Instead he just feels his cheeks burn as the awkward moment stretches on.

Bucky finally picks his jaw up from off his own chest and throws his popcorn aside. “Steve! Pal!” He takes a step forward, then abruptly stops as he suddenly remembers his company. “Connie! This is Steve Rogers. Pal of mine from Brooklyn.”

“Pleased to meet ya!” Connie’s Bronx accent is so strong, she sounds like she’s crunching the words between her teeth. Is that where they are? Steve glances up and around just in case there’s a street sign or a landmark, but comes up with nothing but this movie theater, the diner across the street, and the sliver of trees across the way that might be a park entry or just a patch of green in the depth of city streets. When he lands back on Connie and Bucky, he realizes he took a few seconds too long to answer.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, and shoves his hands further in his pockets because he has no idea if he should offer to shake hers or not. He has to look through his own eyelashes to catch sight of Bucky’s splendid uniform again, and maybe he’s a little bitter when he asks, “Did you get your orders?”

“The one-oh-seventh,” Bucky says, then his chest rises a fraction. “Shipping for England first thing tomorrow.”

Tomorrow! Steve still hasn’t figured out what this all means, or what he’s supposed to be doing here. He’d spent his first night in the past dancing, like an idiot, instead of finding out all he could about the War and Bucky and that damn red book. How could he be so reckless? So careless when something so remarkable had happened to him? 

“Say, Stevie,” Bucky starts. “You want to join us? We’re meeting a friend of Connie’s and could use another fella.”

Connie looks surprised by the idea at first, and Steve doesn’t think she’s really all that pleased about it, but after she follows Bucky’s gaze she seems to pick something up and cracks a smile. “Oh!” She exclaims. “Yes. Good thinking. You boys can keep us safe from the crowds.”

“Crowds?” Steve blurts out. “What crowds? Where are we going?”

Bucky tosses his arm around Steve’s shoulder, leaving Connie to walk beside him on her own, and Steve’s stomach flips when Bucky answers, “The Future!”

‘The Future’, as it turns out, is actually the World Exposition of Tomorrow, which has entirely transformed Flushing Meadows into a dazzling spectacle of innovation, and—Steve suspects—a subtle hope that they are all still here to enjoy it after the war. There’s even a recruitment pavilion right up front, and as they pass by Steve glances quickly away from a mirror with the proud image of a soldier printed against it. Despite the fact that the backlit image has the words, _‘see yourself as a hero’_ scrawled in encouraging block letters across the top, Steve’s eyes barely sprout out of the uniform’s neck, like a broken Snapchat filter.

“Aw, lighten up, pal!” Bucky steps away from Connie, takes Steve’s shoulder in his hand, and tugs him away from the stupid image. “You’re about to be one of the few eligible bachelors in New York.”

Connie hides her laugh behind her hand. She has a heart shaped face and high cheekbones with charming dimples, dark brown curls that bounce on her narrow shoulders, and huge eyes that remind Steve of some cartoon. Steve can hardly blame Bucky for wanting to take her out. “Bucky!” She gasps, teasing him over the scandal. “You’re _terrible_.” 

“It’s true! Three million single ladies left in New York alone.” Bucky laughs, but Steve can only smile awkwardly. What is Bucky trying to do? Bucky knows about Steve, knows that isn’t exactly such an exciting ratio for him. Maybe it’s just for show, reinforcing how ‘straight’ he is for his lady friend. It’s the kind of thing he refuses to deal with in friendships from his own time, but Bucky doesn’t really have much choice here. 

“Steve, don’t you listen to this jerk,” Connie says, stomping up to them. “He’s only going to get you in trouble with all that ‘single ladies’ talk. Besides, I only care about _one_ lady in New York,” she declares, taking ahold of Bucky’s free arm and drags them both back into the crowd. “Let’s find Bonbon before the fireworks start or I’ll never forgive you, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky laughs, and lets himself get pulled along, glancing over his shoulder to wink at Steve as they push through a crowd. A suspended monorail glides across the path, clattering like a rollercoaster overhead, and a massive globe slowly rotates at the end of the walk, lit up and gleaming in the electric lights that top dozens of flag poles representing the world’s nations. Steve has seen this landmark before, dilapidated and on the verge of collapse. Now that he can see it as it’s meant to be, aspirational and unifying despite the threat of global conflict, he realizes why people were so dazzled by the spinning unisphere.

Connie leads the the charge through a crowd gathering outside of a pavilion labeled ‘The Car of the Future’ and points up ahead, on the other side of a few park benches and a cart selling Cracker Jacks. “She told me the dance floor is past the Synthetic Man display,” she explains, then adds with a snicker, “You boys should enjoy that one, anyways.”

Bucky barks out a laugh, but Steve doesn’t quite get the joke.

“Connie!” A girl jumps up, waving at them with a program in hand. Her golden hair tumbles down in waves over shoulders, and her cheeks are bright red by the time they reach her. Bonbon and Connie embrace immediately, and start chatting about _The Wizard of Oz_ , like Bucky and Steve aren’t even there.

Bucky leans down to speak in Steve’s ear. “Connie’s old man doesn’t really trust her going out without a fella on her arm, if you know what I’m sayin’.” 

“Oh!” Steve blurts out, then watches the two girls laughing together through that fresh new perspective. Bonbon reaches up, complimenting Connie’s hair by running her fingers through the soft dark strands, and Connie laughs and holds it there, extending the touch against her cheek for a few more seconds before they step apart. That explains a lot. “Oh…” 

“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you gotta’,” Bucky starts, and kicks his shiny shoe against the edge of a bench. His voice is still low, so no one could overhear through the din of the crowd around them. “But if Bonita would like a gentleman’s arm to hold tonight, do you think you might help ‘em out?”

Steve laughs meanly at himself, then sticks his elbow out, like a chicken wing. “I don’t think I’d be doing Bon—er, Bonita’s reputation any favors if she’s caught on _my_ arm.”

“What are you tryin’ to say, pal?” Bucky stiffens up, then shoves his hands in his pockets with a frown. “Most fun I had since this whole war started was on your arm, dancing at Fresco’s.” 

Steve almost laughs before he realizes he’s managed to insult Bucky with his little jab, and suddenly doesn’t know what to say at all. Luckily, the girls finally remember them, and come to his rescue. It turns out the two of them are part of a singing, dancing ‘all around swell’ performing troupe recently rebranded as the Star Spangled Singers. They’d met Bucky at a dance (surprise) after he’d graduated basic, which is also how Steve learns that it has been a year and a half since the attack Pearl Harbor. It’s no wonder Bucky had been confused when Steve had asked about the recruiters getting their forms restocked. 

Bonbon doesn’t seem too excited to be Steve’s ‘date’ but dutifully takes up his offered arm and Bucky gives him a nickel to buy her some Cracker Jacks. It turns out, she’s the daughter of Italian immigrants, and boldly declares she loves America more than they love wine as they marvel at the astonishing Synthetic Man. 

“Back in Italy,” she says, “they would wonder what good a synthetic man would be if he couldn’t eat his ma’s meatballs.” She scoffs, rolls her eyes. “Swear to Sam, it’s like they like living in the middle ages. Italy ain’t got nothin’ on New York.” Steve figures her comically thick Italian-American burr isn’t for show then. “At least we got the sense to ask what good a synthetic man is if he’s as smooth as all that,” she adds, pointing to the red, skin-tight coveralls, where they form a perfect ‘v’ between his legs, and Connie gives a scandalized laugh. 

“Well, and he doesn’t have a self-contained power source or autonomous locomotion,” Steve mumbles, squinting into the display’s overhead lights to spot the wires holding the robot upright. Bonbon thinks that’s hilarious, and her and Connie share another laugh at the poor synthetic eunuch's expense. 

“Aw, heck, Steve,” Bucky mumbles. “That’s no fun.”

“Speak for yourself,” Connie says, still wiping tears from her eyes. 

Steve knows most of these concept projects will never amount to anything, and he openly laughs at the flying car, which he suspects is just a hollow shell suspended by fishing line. Bonbon is just as cynical as he is, and laughs rudely at the idea of space men, before Steve sighs and says, “Well, we’ll get to the moon in the fifties so I guess that one is not far off.”

That’s when Bucky starts to have fun again, laughs and declares him _Steve Rogers of the Twenty-Fifth Century_. Steve turns bright red and stutters out, “Twenty- _first_!”

When Bucky asks if that’s where his ear machines come from, he has a moment of confusion before he remembers his hearing aids and admits that they just might. There’s no harm in it, since it’s not like Bucky believes him, but Steve regrets it after they _all_ start calling him Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century, and it becomes his job to explain to them why each and every exhibit wouldn’t work. Eventually, he just starts making stuff up: Wireless telephones won’t work because they’d have to change the direction of the antennas in accordance with the moon’s position in the sky. Television? Total scam, those actors will never fit in a screen that small. That ‘radarange’ oven that uses microwave technology sounds swell, but the only way to tell if your food’s finished is by loading it up with x-ray film so it could print out a picture of your food’s insides.

The more outrageous Steve can make his cynicism the better, the girls laugh and Bucky snickers rudely and joins in the fun. They want Steve Rogers of the twenty-first century? They got him.

After that, Bonbon opens up a little, tells him about Connie’s strict father, and her own suspicious sisters, and how different life will be for them with all the fellas like Bucky heading off to war. Her own father works at the Met, which almost makes Steve choke on a Cracker Jack, and she pats his knobbly spine and offers him a sip of her ‘soda pop.’ 

“I’m glad you’ll be here,” she finally says, while they peer through the thick glass into a water tank containing a scale model of the proposed Atlantic Enterprises Underwater Cities of the Future. “I know it sounds selfish, but _some_ of the fellas gotta stay home.”

“Somehow I feel like I would have signed up right alongside him,” Steve admits, catching sight of Bucky and Connie, only a few feet off, trying on an old fashioned diving helmet in shining copper. Connie opens up the little window on the front of the helmet’s face and Bucky makes a rude gagging sound before she slams it shut again. “...If it were even possible.”

“I don’t really blame, ya,” Bonbon says. “Staying on with the girls after the war broke out? That was Connie’s idea. We’re gonna’ do a USO tour to get folks buyin’ war bonds and signing up, but they’ll send us over there for shows sooner or later. Scary thing is, I think that’s what Connie’s hoping for. A chance to make a difference. A chance to show them all what good a buncha dames can do.”

“You’d rather stay home?” Steve asks.

“I’d rather stay safe,” she says, and glances down, probably worried that makes her sound like a coward. “I’d rather _she_ stay safe. Those Germans, they don’t care who they hurt. Connie’s ma is a Jewess and I heard they’ve been trying to lock them all up, even though her pops is a mean old Catholic. What if they find us? Would they know just by lookin’ at her? So yeah, I am gonna’ follow her into the fight. Hell or high water.”

Steve bites his tongue. They have no idea. No notion at all of the extent of horrors facing the Jewish population in Europe. That won’t come out in the United States press for a while, likely until after the war. Steve is pretty sure it’s the liberation of Auschwitz that does it, but he can’t recall exactly when that was. If it’s only March of 1943, then it could still be years away. What he knows makes Steve feel sick, and he swallows against the bile rising in the back of his throat. Is there anything he can do? Could he tell someone? The reality of his situation makes his heart clench, like there’s a great fist in his chest, reminding him he’s helpless to make a difference, even with all he knows about the future.

“Aw, heck,” she says, with a half-hearted laugh. “Sorry I got all maudlin on you just about dancin’. And here you are with your sweetheart going off to fight for real.” 

Steve shakes his head, but not to deny that Bucky is his sweetheart. “I knew that’s where he was headed when I met him. In an alley. Getting my ass kicked by some bullies.” Steve shrugs at the way Bonbon’s mouth drops in shock. “Who am I to say that now he shouldn’t keep fighting bullies? Even if they are Nazis.”

Bonbon laughs, it’s a bit sad, but honest. “Alright, well, let’s get away from this underwater city. All those people trapped under glass, like a buncha bugs. Can’t say I like the looks of it, if that’s where our future is headed.”

Steve can’t really blame her. It reminds him of the video game Bioshock, where the lost underwater city of Rapture becomes a political hellscape of which Ayn Rand would be proud to have inspired. He briefly wonders where all the passion for these outlandish achievements went by the time 2016 rolls around, but thinks that kind of self-enclosed city is better left to the science fiction writers than real civilizations anyway.

They free Bucky from the copper breathing contraption, and move on to the kitchen of the future which they all agree is far too boring in comparison, and who can afford a place with a proper kitchen in New York anyway? Bucky buys an ice cream for the girls to share, and they finally make it to a small clearing in the crowd so they can settle in with a good view of the night sky as fireworks begin to boom above.

“What a birthday gift, right Bucky?” Connie says, nudging Bucky’s ribs with her elbow. She and Bonbon are side by side, sandwiched between Bucky and Steve as they carefully arrange themselves to be close-but-not-too-close at the crowded fair. A green rocket bursts overhead, washing the park in a verdant hue, and Bucky glances over at Steve, smiles when he realizes Steve heard that, too.

“Nah, a better birthday gift is getting one more day at home,” he says quietly, and Steve picks up on how suddenly Bucky’s fearless pride is nowhere to be found. 

“Happy birthday,” Steve says. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Bucky rolls his eyes and ignores the question, looking back upwards as another series of colorful rockets light up the night sky.


	14. New York March 10, 1943 - Lost Time

“Wait, wait,” Bucky pleads, as Connie and Bonbon team up in an effort to drag him past the Synthetic Man towards the dance floor. “Just one more thing!” 

“You promised us dancing, Bucky,” Connie sasses him, and turns around in a huff. Bonbon plants her fist on her hips, and stares Bucky down with all the power of her Italian ancestors behind her. “We’ve done all the science things by now and the fireworks ended. Let’s have ourselves a proper ball!” 

Steve stands off to the side, making it clear Bucky’s on his own for this one.

“I know, doll!” Bucky pleads, then points over to a heavy wooden cabinet that reminds Steve a little bit of a confessional, other than the brightly painted panels and the words “Photomatic” set in huge block letters over the velvet drape. “But dontcha’ want a photo of me for when I’m gone?”

“Oh!” Bonbon grabs Connie’s hand. “A photo booth! Gee whiz, Con, let’s go!” 

There’s some discussion on how they should all use Bucky’s remaining four dollars, since the photo booth is outrageously priced at fifty cents a turn. Eventually, they determine that in order for each to have something to remember the other by, the ladies would take photos and then the fellas would have a turn. Then they could trade once the four pictures print out of the machine, leaving them three dollars to get some drinks, and take a cab home. Connie and Bonbon go first, giggling and laughing behind the curtain before going quiet and waiting out the series of four delayed flashes. 

“You didn’t have to leave in the middle of the night, you know,” Bucky mutters quietly, while they wait outside the booth. “Thought you’d come back, since you left your boots an’ all. Guess you were just that eager to get the hell outta’ dodge.” 

His boots! Steve thought he had just lost them in his lab after getting high on fumes. In reality, he had been drunk, and left them back in 1941. No fair. “I didn’t mean to leave,” Steve tells him, shifting uncomfortably as Bucky stares at the ground. “I wasn’t trying to.”

Bucky shrugs, and doesn’t seem like he believes him. “It’s alright. Not everyone’s a fan of my ma’s pancake recipe.”

Steve snorts, caught off guard, and Bucky’s laugh is so loud that it’s obvious he’s forgiven. 

“But seriously,” Steve says, catching his breath. “I really didn’t mean to leave. I wish I hadn’t. Not for so long.” There is something more important Steve is supposed to ask him, something critical about the painting. His old life seems so far away by now, utterly unimportant now that he can live this moment right here beside Bucky. 

“Steve, where do you live?” Bucky asks, suddenly earnest and a little raw. “Can I write to you? If I could just—”

The curtain flings aside and Connie comes tumbling out, laughing with Bonbon hot on her heels. She snatches the single print that spits out of the photo booth’s tiny tray and they both go quiet, appreciating their hard work, complimenting each others hair and giggling.

“Guess it’s our turn,” Steve says, not acknowledging Bucky’s question. There’s no address Steve could give him that letters would reach for another seventy-five years. Bucky smiles, forgiving him again like he always will, and follows him into the cramped space. There’s a narrow wooden bench facing a huge camera lens and Steve hopes it doesn’t cut him off at the nose, considering where they expected his head to be in that recruitment mirror. Steve is narrow enough that there’s plenty of room, but Bucky’s whole side presses into his anyway after he drops two quarters into the slot marked in more bright red paint, _4 photos - 50¢_.

“Can I put my arm around you?” Bucky softly asks, asking for so much more with the smile that follows.

“Thought this picture was for the girls?” Steve says, and he’s trying to sound tough but his voice comes out quiet as Bucky’s arm settles around him.

“Well, we gotta say it is, don’t we?” Bucky snarks, like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world. Then he leans over and takes Steve’s earlobe between his teeth. Steve gasps, and a flash bulb pops in front of his eyes.

“Buck,” Steve pants out, squirming when Bucky laughs a hot puff of breath into his hearing aid. Bucky’s hat nearly falls off, and Steve turns to catch it. Bucky presses his mouth onto Steve’s and another pop of light blinds him through his eyelids, and Steve barely manages one quick breath before he kisses Bucky back. Just like that he’s taken on a ride yet again, the same overwhelming rush of adrenaline zipping through his veins as if he were back on the seat of that rickety bicycle, clinging to Bucky for dear life as they foolishly take on the rush of Brooklyn traffic while an angry gang of bricklayers shout after them. Bucky pulls away, slowly to make it last as long as possible, then presses his forehead into Steve’s so that he can look right into his eyes. 

“I’m glad I got to see you again,” Bucky says.

Steve’s insides melt, but before he could let himself say something stupid, or feel something even stupider, he plonks Bucky’s hat on his own head and pulls off the sloppiest mock salute he can manage. There’s one final pop of light, and Bucky laughs at Steve’s terrible imitation of a soldier.

“I take back everything I ever said about you having a shot at taking out the jerrys,” he says, after he flings aside the curtain and they return to the fair outside. Connie and Bonbon are still there, waiting off to the side with their own picture held gently between their hands. “You’d make a terrible soldier.”

“ _Now_ can we go dancing?” Connie calls over, as soon as she catches sight of them emerging. Bonbon carefully slips their photo into her purse as Bucky snatches his hat away from Steve. 

“Yes we can, ladies!” Bucky says, flinging both hands out and then popping the brim of his hat, to set it back where it belongs at a jaunty angle. “I don’t expect to spend my last night out as a wallflower.”

Steve falls into step behind them, but doubles back to collect his photo from the little slot on the side of the booth. How careless of Bucky to walk away from this evidence in plain sight, but maybe he’s more distracted than he’s letting on, which would be very Bucky of him. The photos aren’t in a strip, like the ones Steve’s more familiar with, but instead four, roughly even portraits appear on a four by five print. The photo quality is terrible, blurry without being entirely out of focus, but it’s amazing to watch the sepia tones develop before his eyes. 

The first image is the worst, Steve’s shock at Bucky’s ear-nibble moving him right out of focus. The second one is almost as bad, Steve’s mouth parted in obvious pleasure while Bucky’s mouth still caresses the shell of his ear. The third is the kiss. The fourth the salute. It’s that fourth one that makes his chest go tight, Bucky’s happy laughter, caught on film, proof that the man has a genuine smile under all that careful posing, complete with crow’s feet on the corners of his eyes that he probably hates. Steve holds the photo close, then folds it half and fits it against his cell phone in his back pocket.

Vintage selfies certainly have a special kind of charm.

“Stevie,” Bonbon calls, waving him along to catch up. “Bucky says you can dance, too!” 

Oh, does he now? 

“Bucky is a jerk!” Steve answers simply, and hops to it.

“But I ain’t a liar!” Bucky snaps back.

There’s no way for Steve to win that fight, since Bucky would hardly let him forget how he taught him how to dance. The floor is a happening place, set up near the rotunda and already crammed with happy (and slightly drunk) fair goers. A big band plays swing music, Connie and Bonbon wave excitedly to a trio of girls in sequins dancing on stage, and as soon as they arrive, a master of ceremonies decked out in a striped jacket and bow tie announces the Lindy hop as the next number. Steve puts up minimal resistance, trying his damndest to go for drinks, but when Bucky calls him a ‘punk’ and Bonbon gives him that look he caves almost immediately. He might be gay as Christmas, but he is a gentleman. 

It turns out that Bucky is a much more forgiving dance partner, because only two dances in he manages to step on poor Bonbon’s foot twice and Connie quickly cuts in to rescue her. Bucky slaps Steve on the back and offers to buy them both a cola in consolation. 

“Sorry,” Steve mumbles, as the two of them helplessly watch Connie lead Bonbon like the pro she is. “Looks like I got you stuck being a wallflower after all.” 

Bucky shrugs. “Happens to the best of us, pal,” he says, giving him a sly little wink as he puts the mouth of the tall, perspiring bottle to his lips. Steve can’t help but notice that Bucky lets the very pink tip of his tongue touch the bottle first, like he’s urging it open before he takes a swig. Suddenly, Steve’s throat is so very dry, and he reaches out to touch Bucky’s knee, aborting part way there after he remembers where he is. Somehow, this dance floor doesn’t seem as easy going as the dance hall from his first visit, and Steve doesn’t think this crowd has such a great sense of humor about two fellas dancing as they do about the two girls having fun.

“Everyone at works’ been talking about the Nazis stealing art,” Bucky says in a low voice, and takes another sip of his soda. “Hitler’s some kinda’ art fanatic or something. Looting all the museums, churches. Cleaned out the Louvre.” 

Steve wishes he could spit. To think that Adolf Hitler is actually alive—alive right now, somewhere in the world!—and stealing art makes Steve shiver. While he’s here dancing, Hitler is murdering his way across Europe. 

It’s the common hypothetical scenario that people speak of when it comes to what they would do if they could time travel: Kill Hitler, and drastically alter the timeline? Or allow him to slaughter so many millions of people in order to preserve the known present? Now, Steve has found himself living that exact hypothetical, but there’s no actual way for him to do any such thing. Everyone in America (and half of Europe, for that matter) already wants to kill Hitler. If it was possible, someone would have done it. Steve wouldn’t even fit a uniform.

Steve takes a measured breath before he speaks again. “He’s a lot more than just fanatic,” he says. “Hitler’s art theft is on a scale that history will never know again. He wants to get his hands on everything. Everything.”

Bucky goes quiet, watching Steve and watching the girls dance as the music plays on and the warm evening stretches into a cooler night. “The way you talk sometimes,” Bucky starts, still watching the girls. “Maybe you can’t tell me what’s happening because you know a little too much.” 

“What do you mean?” Steve frowns. “I don’t follow.”

“Like when you first met Ubby,” Bucky says, and flicks his gaze up and down Steve, getting a good look at him. “You talked about codebreakers. Military Intelligence. You were joking about it being work for dames, because they don’t need big fellas for that job, but the way I figure it, they could still use smart ones.”

“Hmm,” Steve mumbles, sips his own soda. “Guess that means Ubby is out.” 

Bucky laughs. “Fine, I see how it is. Keep your secrets. Sides, Ubby is already driving tanks over there somewhere in Italy. I told him to make sure the war ain’t over until I get there myself.” 

“Oh, it won’t be,” Steve miserably tells him, but Bucky has got him thinking. There really is something he’s supposed to be doing. Not entertaining fantasies about assassinating Adolf Hitler, not changing the course of the entire war. Just one small thing, something Bucky is supposed to help him with, the entire reason why he’s here in the first place. Their conversation about stolen art has poked at a very specific button, but whatever it is doesn’t quite connect. 

Steve bundles up his frustration and blows it out in a breath so loud that Bucky puts down his soda bottle with a clank. “Alright, Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century. That’s enough of that. Did I mention it’s my last night out?” 

“Maybe once,” Steve says, sarcastic as he can manage, and Bucky sticks out his tongue at him.

“So we’re going to go find our dates and have a gas,” he says, and Steve bursts out laughing. The language, for the most part, doesn’t sound so strange. Bucky’s Brooklyn drawl comes through his smiles and easy chatter, Connie’s Bronx crunch is heavy in the front of her mouth, and even Bonbon’s Queens twang is easy to spot. A few things that sneak out here and there sound ridiculous, just in case Steve forgot that this isn’t just a retro party in modern New York. 

It’s easy enough to track down the girls, since they cut a swathe through the amateurs in the crowd, and they welcome Steve and Bucky back with open arms for a few more dances before calling it a night. They walk Bonbon home first, since she lives right there in Queens, then take Connie home in a cab, all the way to the Bronx. That leaves just enough change in Bucky’s pocket for them to take the subway back to Brooklyn, since Steve doesn’t even have his wallet with him. 


	15. New York March 10, 1943 - Truth in Hiding

The neighborhood starts to look familiar, and when Steve spots the alley where Eddie had attacked Arnie when Steve had first arrived he realizes this must be Bucky’s apartment building. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky says, following Steve’s gaze along the fence. “Eddie got shipped out three months ago. Neighborhood’s been quiet ever since.” 

“Damn,” Steve whispers, because something about that seems harsh and final. “What about Arnie?”

“Arnie?” Bucky says, after unlocking the side door. “They don’t take fellas like Arnie. They know the guy’s a queer.” 

What does that say about them taking Bucky? Steve keeps that thought to himself, and glances at the dark apartment on the other side of the alley, the one Arnie had vanished into that night. Supposedly, Bucky’s neighbor had gone through some brutal conversion therapy that’d left him with a speech impediment and fear, but asking if he had joined the army isn’t what Steve had meant. He actually hopes Arnie has managed to recover somewhat from that horrible ordeal. Clearly, Bucky just has the war on his mind. 

Bucky’s apartment is at the top of a very narrow flight of stairs in a quad with three other apartments and the shared bathroom. Steve remembers it like yesterday, until Bucky opens his own door. Rather than stacks of art books, soft rugs, and worn down furniture, the apartment is nearly cleared out. A few boxes remain on the floor near Bucky’s tiny kitchenette, and a bathrobe lays over the footboard of his narrow bed. Even the sofa is gone. 

“Ah,” Steve says, footsteps loud on the bare floors as he walks in. “All packed up. Oh, damn!” 

On the top of an old paper bag, stuffed with crumpled paper and other trash, is a short stack of comic books. Steve doesn’t know much about comics, he’d read them when he was a kid but left them behind when he’d started playing video games. Everyone though—kid or adult, collector or not—knows this comic. A familiar figure in a royal blue jumpsuit heaves a green car over his head, while a bright red cape extends behind him to show the swiftness of his heroics, and panicked villains flee the scene. The words _Action Comics_ are unmistakable across the top. “This is going to be worth a hell of a lot of money one day.” 

“We still playing that game?” Bucky snorts out a laugh. “ _Today_ it ain’t even worth the dime I spent on it. ‘Sides, Captain America’s better,” he adds indignantly. Of course he’d prefer the patriotic soldier to the super powered alien. “He did what we shoulda’ done in the beginning, and socked ol’ Adolf on the jaw.”

Steve flips through the stack and sure enough, decked out in an almost obscenely patriotic costume, Captain America’s fist crosses Adolf Hitler’s weak chin, even as his star-spangled shield deflects enemy fire. “Guess he got his priorities right.” 

“Damn right,” Bucky says, fire blazing in his eyes. He catches sight of the comics in Steve’s hand and his mouth goes sideways as he considers it. “I sold most everything off, but I got a few things my ma’s gonna keep for me while I’m gone. Guess it wouldn’t hurt to toss the funnies in with the books.” Steve is secretly grateful. How much do these comics sell for in his time? A million dollars? Two? It’d be like seeing art destroyed if Bucky had tossed them out, a crime against history.

Bucky sets his hat on the sturdy stack of boxes he’s clearly been using as a table before he starts undoing his tie. “I still got some stuff in the kitchen though. You hungry?” 

Steve takes the opportunity while Bucky’s back is turned to sneak a look at his phone. It says it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon, still stuck to ‘future time’ without signal in the past for the clock to update. It had been sometime near four in the morning when he had been returned to his lab, so if his time in the past is beholden to that particular deadline, he might still be here when Bucky wakes up the next day. That’s a big ‘if.’

Steve should really leave now. Instead he suggests pancakes.

Bucky stops, his shoes kicked halfway off, and Steve swears his face goes red before he cracks a smile. “Yeah, sure thing,” he says. “Short stack coming right up!” 

Bucky has to dig a pan out of his single box of kitchen items, while Steve tosses a quilt on the bare floorboards to set up a picnic. Bucky is happy to use up the rest of his milk and butter, and even grins when he produces a tin shaped like a log cabin containing maple syrup. 

“I was planning on making these tomorrow morning,” he says, lifting his shoulder in half a shrug when Steve glances up in surprise, and that settles it, Bucky is definitely blushing. “I uh, never cooked for another fella before.”

“How is your ma’s pancake recipe so famous then?” Steve snickers, taking the syrup tin and unscrewing the little cap on the cabin’s chimney. It smells sticky sweet, and he puts it down on the newspapers they’re using as placemats.

“Oh, she works in a diner, down on fifty-second,” Bucky explains, as the first batch of batter from his spoon sizzles when it hits the pan. Already, the scent of frying butter makes Steve’s stomach rumble. “She teaches art too, but makes a livin’ waiting tables. On Sundays she makes flapjacks. I helped out there when I was little, because then I got to eat the extras from the leftover batter.”

“What does your dad do?” Steve asks, and he yanks off his shoes, keeping in mind that before he goes to sleep he should put them back on.

“Died,” Bucky says, unconcerned. “Who knows. What about yours?” 

“Oh,” Steve says, understanding an obvious deflection when he hears one. “I um. My dad wasn’t such a nice guy I guess. Mom raised me on her own, until she got sick.” 

Bucky looks over his shoulder then, eyebrows going up. “I’m sorry,” he says, and means it. 

“Lung cancer. No good reason for it. Just happens to some folks, I guess.” It’s not fair, she didn’t even smoke, she ate healthy and loved riding her bike. Steve swallowed that bitter pill a long time ago though, so he moves on. “She was an artist too, actually. She was a nurse to pay the bills, though.” 

“Then who raised you after?” Bucky asks, flipping the pancake in the pan, and he must have experience at this because it makes a perfect turn in midair and comes sizzling back down.

“I was on my own since I was seventeen,” Steve admits. “I got a scholarship though, went to college early. I was alright.” He hadn’t really been alright. With as sick as he had been, with as sick as his mother had been throughout his last years of high school, Steve had been _very_ far from alright. He simply ignores those memories as best as he can.

“You shouldn’t have to be,” Bucky says. “Wish I’d ‘a known you. We coulda’ been pals in school, too, seeing as how we’re the same age and all. Bet we woulda’ raised hell.” 

“Mm,” Steve remembers that he had told Bucky he was twenty-seven, and if Bucky had been twenty-seven then, he must be twenty-eight now—or wait, twenty- _nine_ , since it’s his birthday. That thought makes Steve feel confused, so he goes back to scanning the paper under his dinner plate, catching snippets of reports from the front, the output at the new Ford Motor Factory in California ramping up production of ships, the different ways women should can food and small children collect scrap metal. It’s like there’s no news outside of the war, nothing going on anywhere in the world worth reporting on if it isn’t about air raids and troop movements in Europe, or the growing conflict in the Pacific. They even list the specific platoons that wind up- 

Steve frowns. “What unit did you say you were with?”

“The one-oh-seventh,” Bucky answers over his shoulder. “Army Infantry Division. Why?”

Steve could look them up. Everything is recorded. Every death tallied, every ambush plotted, every raid carefully constructed. Steve could look up Bucky Barnes of the one-oh-seventh, could bring him information that could keep him safe. 

Ah, but there is that hypothetical situation again: save the life of someone in the past? Or preserve the current timeline? 

Steve chews on that while Bucky cooks up the rest of his batter. If Steve helps Bucky, how does that alter the present? Would the anonymous painter still capture Bucky’s likeness in oil for Steve to find? If the painting is never made, then how does Steve travel to the past? If Steve doesn’t travel to the past, he wouldn’t be here to alter it, and… 

It’s enough to make Steve’s skull split open. 

“You okay?” Bucky says, walking over on his bare feet, pan in hand, dish towel tossed over his shoulder. He’s wearing his undershirt and his shorts, stripped down with the kind of casual intimacy that takes very little thought and an awful lot of trust. 

“Fine,” Steve says. “Can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow. I wish there was something more I could do.” 

“Lots of jobs on the homefront,” Bucky says, again thinking only of the war. He plonks down on the floor across from Steve, then proceeds to flip pancake after pancake onto Steve’s plate with a wooden spoon.

“Like collecting scrap metal in my little red wagon?” Steve says, pointing at the advert in the paper, Radio Flyer wagon company proudly doing their part for the war effort. 

“Sure,” Bucky says, unironically, then proceeds to slather butter across the top of his short stack. He shoves the pat over for Steve to do the same, before he takes the tin shaped like a miniature log cabin. “Use it all up. Less I gotta carry tomorrow morning.” 

Steve does as he’s told. The pancakes are delicious, and soon they’re both lying on their backs across the floor, letting their aching stomachs stretch.

“Hell of a pancake recipe,” Steve breathes out. “Tell your ma she’s a genius.” 

Bucky snickers. “Oh believe me, Stevie. She already knows.” 

“She know about you?” Steve asks, and glances quickly over to Bucky when he feels the tension in the room pulled tight, like a string. 

“Why would I tell her something like that?” Bucky finally says. “She’s got enough to worry about with my sister. ‘Sides, I figure after the war I’ll find a nice girl like Connie. Get married. Maybe have some kids. It’ll make ma happy to never know I— am this way.”

Steve nods, but doesn’t think he needs to really answer. He should have known, and he probably shouldn’t have asked. “My mom knew. She knew for a long time. Before she died she told me to never be afraid of who I am.” Steve swallows. “I came out to my friends right after. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be but… Well, I had this girlfriend. She wasn’t so happy.” 

Bucky clicks his tongue. “No one ever tell you dames hate it when they get left for fellas?”

“Better than lying to them,” Steve says.

“Ah,” Bucky says, with a knowing chuckle. “Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century, with all his secrets. Funny thing that you pick being queer as the one lie you won’t tell.” 

“Wait, what are you trying to say?” Steve turns over, because even though Bucky didn’t sound like he was trying to accuse Steve of anything, he basically just called him a liar and Steve’s pissed.

“You show up on my doorstep, you pick a fight with Eddie the Brick, you ain’t got no address, and leave in the middle of the night. Then you come back a year and a half later, you still ain’t got no address—an’ don’t think I haven’t seen that queer watch you got in your back pocket. You say you’re not afraid of who you are? That’s your ma’s dying advice to you? Some job you’re doing of it. Jesus _wept_.” 

Steve feels his neck heat with fury. How _dare_ he? 

“Why are you so afraid of telling me who you are?” Bucky slowly picks himself up, folds his knees into a cross-legged position. He’s attentive, but not confrontational, like he’s just ready for Steve to fess up. 

Steve scrubs the back of his neck with his hand, trying to buy time. Bucky’s sharper than Steve’d given him credit for. All those times he’d laughed off Steve’s deflections, all those times he’d easily moved on when Steve had no answers for obvious questions. Bucky hadn’t exactly forgotten, and now apparently he’d had enough. What is Steve supposed to say? 

_I found a magic painting of you. Two times that I’ve touched it I’ve been transported here. I am from the future, and my ‘queer watch’ has more computing power than the rocket we’ll eventually use to put space men on the moon._

Instead, Steve says, “This is a mistake,” and stands up to leave. Bucky leaps to his feet, rushes to the door and posts there with his hands forward, as if he’s surrendering even while blocking Steve’s escape.

Steve glances at the thick muscles in Bucky’s arms and doesn’t try to move him out of the way, or even ask. There’s no way he can overpower Bucky, and he doesn’t want to think he’s trapped here if Bucky decides he doesn’t want him leaving. It takes only a fraction of a second, but Bucky’s gaze follows Steve’s own, and he quickly stands aside with a sheepish hunch to his shoulders.

“Steve, I,” Bucky smiles down at his feet, but now Steve can tell easily that it’s fake, as something inside pulls Bucky in two directions at once. “I won’t try to stop you if you really gotta go. But Stevie I gotta say it. You tore me up. Leaving like you did. I never thought a fella could come into my life like you did and then just-” Bucky cuts himself off, and a little shiver goes through him, not quite a sob. “I tried to look you up. Steve Rogers. In Brooklyn. I tried to find you an’ when I couldn’t.” Another gulp and now Bucky laughs again, and it’s a little bitter. “How do I find you again?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admits and Bucky slumps even further, the fight going out of him. “Bucky I don’t know. I think. I think I’m supposed to find you.” 

“What? That doesn’t make any sense-”

Steve lunges forward, takes Bucky’s face in his hands and kisses him. 


	16. New York March 10, 1943 - Sweet Perfection

Bucky folds immediately, dropping back against the door, then throws his arms around Steve’s middle to keep them both from toppling over. Bucky’s mouth is sweet, sticky from the maple syrup, and so, so moist. Steve feels the edges of Bucky’s chin, then presses his thumbs right up against the slick crease where their mouths join together. He’s wanted to touch those lips for so long, wanted those lips touching his, he can’t help himself now. The attention makes Bucky ask for more, like attention always does, and with just the suggestion of a tug on his waistband, Steve lets himself be lifted off the floor, ankles locked just over the curve of Bucky’s ass. 

“Fuck, Stevie, fuck,” Bucky gasps, breaking from Steve’s kiss for only a moment before he dives back in again, and again, fingers flexing against Steve’s narrow waist. “I bet I could fuck you right up against this door.” 

That makes Steve moan wordless encouragement, and Bucky’s hips gently grind between his spread legs. They’re both hard, Bucky’s thin cotton shorts concealing nothing, and Steve’s jeans stretch far too tight. Steve doesn’t like being picked up, doesn’t like the sort of guys attracted to his small build. He’d once left in the middle of a date when a guy he supposedly “Matched 100%” with licked his lips and told him he’d be surprised if Steve had body hair yet. 

Bucky’s hungry lust is different. He doesn’t make Steve feel small when he hoists him up and walks over to the bed with Steve riding on his hips, chests pressed together. He doesn’t make Steve feel like he’s being treated like a child when he makes short work of his belt and his jeans and his shirt, tossing his clothes in a careless heap on the floor. Steve doesn’t burn with shame when Bucky swallows at the sight of his narrow chest, or takes his pink, rigid nipple into his mouth in a long series of suckling kisses. Bucky’s gentle caresses are protective, his lidded gaze thick with desire. Bucky’s own heart pounds so loudly in his chest Steve can feel it hammering into his own. Bucky whimpers when Steve reaches down and wraps his own hand around his cock, and bites his kiss-swollen lower lip as a shudder ripples through him.

Bucky is on fire for this, for _him_ , and Steve is in control.

“Can I—” Bucky has to catch his breath when he repositions himself on his elbows. Steve is flat on his back, enjoying whatever Bucky was doing with his tongue in the dip of his collarbone. “Can I use my mouth? On your cock?”

Steve swallows and nods, and he knows his mouth is hanging open like a goddamn idiot, but he can’t make the words come out. Bucky scooches down the mattress, drags off Steve’s boxers, and puts one hand on his belly. 

“Beautiful,” Bucky whispers, and Steve sucks on his own teeth because a little puff of air touches the cold spot of precome on the tip of his aching hard dick. Bucky smiles when Steve squirms, lowers himself down and just like he had with the soda bottle, licks down the cleft of his cockhead with the very tip of his tongue before engulfing entirely between his lips.

Steve throws his head back with a sudden cry, and bites his own tongue to stop himself from going off like a rocket in Bucky’s mouth. He digs his fingers into Bucky’s thick, dark hair, messes up the glossy pomade he used to keep it neat for their double date, and his toes curl when Bucky’s free hand starts to massage his balls. 

“Bucky!” Steve moans, barely keeping his voice down. “Buck...” 

“Mmm?” Bucky cruelly hums, and Steve knows he’s enjoying the way it makes Steve squirm because he can practically feel the guy grinning around his cock.

“Don’t _do_ that!” Steve desperately moans, a line of pleasure making Steve’s back arch suddenly up. “Oh, fuck.”

Bucky pulls off slowly, keeping the pressure tight as his lips travel over the delicate flesh, ending with a long, moist lick to make it last a little longer. Steve gasps, finally able to catch his breath, but can’t stop his hips from their tiny attempts to thrust towards Bucky, seeking out the heat and pressure that he just lost.

“Can I fuck you, Stevie?” 

Condoms. Responsibilities. Something about a stupid red journal and a Captain America comic? 

“Yeah,” Steve says instead. “I’m ready.” 

The bed springs groan in protest then bounce back into shape as Bucky shuffles off, and he swears under his breath as he rummages around in one box after another. Steve doesn’t bother watching him, instead finds his hands wandering over his own, naked body, trailing through the sweet lines of pleasure that Bucky’s mouth left behind. 

This isn’t what Steve is here for, this isn’t like Steve at all. This is reckless and selfish and maybe even dangerous. What does Steve know about Bucky Barnes of the one-oh-seventh Army infantry division? Nothing more than he was a soldier, who lived, and probably died, and somewhere in between had his portrait painted. 

“Coconut oil,” Bucky says, holding the bottle up for Steve to see. “The good stuff.” 

Steve doesn’t know why that sweet, slightly shy smile should be so erotic, considering just a second ago Bucky’s mouth was wrapped around his cock, but he has to tighten his fist around his balls and clench his teeth to stop the orgasm that suddenly built up in the bottom of his stomach. 

“You done this before?” Bucky asks, climbing back onto the bed, on his knees, his hard cock still bobbing between his thighs. 

“By myself,” Steve admits. The guys on Match were complete animals. All of them. Every time. There’s a reason Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century is so damn cynical. He smiles and shakes his head, trying to ease away Bucky’s obvious shock. “It’s fine,” he says, and spreads his knees for Bucky. “I trust you.” 

That’s the answer Steve’s been looking for. The reason this all feels natural, the reason it feels _right_. The reason his brain isn’t exploding with the consequences of his adventure through time, with panic over some vague mission he knows he’s forgetting to complete. Maybe this is where Steve is supposed to be, his whole life. Maybe at four in the morning he won’t wake up in the Met’s conservation lab, disoriented and forgetful. He trusts this bold, impulsive, clever, curious, charming man with his life.

Steve puts it all out of his mind as soon as Bucky’s hand gently trails down, and pushes past all his lingering thoughts into his body with tropical-sweet scented fingers. “God damn,” Bucky murmurs, stroking himself with his free hand. “You’re beautiful.” 

Bucky continues to tell Steve such ridiculous things, things that make him hot inside, just as hot as Bucky’s oiled fingers moving between Steve’s legs. All Steve can do is moan and gasp for air and feel utterly adored, opening wider and wider for Bucky’s second finger, then his third. “That’s it,” Bucky tells him, teeth clenched. “Oh god Stevie, you’re amazing. Feels so good on my fingers. You’re so warm.” 

“So small,” Steve says, shaking his head, rebelling finally against all Bucky’s compliments. “I _know_ I’m small.” 

Bucky stops then, and Steve opens his eyes to find him watching him carefully. They are quiet and still, regarding one another for a long time before Bucky eases his fingers free from Steve’s body and says, “You have no idea how big you really are, do you.” 

Steve sits up, the emptiness inside him aching for more. Bucky is stuck though, like he isn’t sure he can make a move just yet, so Steve crawls right into his lap. He wraps one arm around those beautiful, muscled shoulders for balance, and uses his free hand to find Bucky’s cock. Bucky gently guides Steve’s hips down, not saying anything, just watching Steve carefully with those big, slate blue eyes. Bucky’s cock is bigger than his fingers, and Steve’s body resists for just a moment before he takes a breath, relaxes, and sinks down, taking the first few inches with a gasp.

Bucky freezes in his arms, but he pats his shoulder. “It’s okay,” Steve reassures him, and flexes his thighs to take a little more. “I’m okay.” 

“Stevie,” Bucky chokes out his name like a prayer, and drops his forehead onto Steve’s shoulder. Bucky’s own hips shiver as he suppresses the urge to thrust his cock deeper, letting Steve take his time, giving him the reins. 

“Almost there,” Steve tells him. “Feel so good inside me, Buck. Filling me up.”

Bucky’s arms gather Steve tight against him, crushing their chests together, and finally he gives in, lifting his hips just a fraction of an inch. Bucky lets out a helpless moan. “Too good, you feel too good. Stevie, baby, baby doll…” Bucky continues a string of gibberish, speaking a language of pure adoration as his hips pick up the pace. Steve bites his lip at first, and the sting of stretch gives way to a wash of heat and pleasure and friction. His body takes Bucky’s entire cock, balls deep, and he would shout if he weren’t worried the neighbors could hear.

“Yes, Bucky,” he urges on, as soon as Bucky’s dick touches something inside him that makes his toes curl and his voice leap up an octave. “Harder, I can take it. Harder, move, yes, there.” 

The backs of Steve’s thighs slap against Bucky’s, the friction between them driving up his fever until he feels delirious with the building pressure. Bucky snakes his hand between their sweat slick bellies, oiled and smelling of coconut like the rest of him by now, and engulfs Steve’s dick in his hand. Steve’s thighs convulse as the added pleasure leaps up to his gut, and Bucky slides his hand deftly up and down the length of his cock. 

“Oh, Bucky, yes! Fuck!” 

“Shh!” Bucky warns him, and kisses him again to swallow the shout of Steve’s orgasm. Steve cries into Bucky’s mouth, letting it go. Everything between them is slick, hot oil and ecstacy, and Steve spills his own come into the mix, his hips aching the moment the tremors subside. 

“Mmmph,” Steve murmurs out, and it’s the best he can do as he continues to take Bucky in, his cock and his tongue and his sweat and his sweet, wet kisses. Finally, Bucky slows, shivering with the effort, and gives Steve just enough room to breathe. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, yes,” Steve pants, even though he wants to use his inhaler and his hips are sore from spreading over Bucky’s lap. “Keep going.” 

So Bucky keeps going. His hands slide up and down Steve’s bare back, caressing every knobbly inch of him, whispering out little curses and encouragement as he explores. Bucky is very good at making Steve shiver, dancing just the tips of his fingers against his overstimulated skin, lifting goosebumps along his spine despite the heat. 

Soon, Bucky’s gibberish just turns into deep, hot breathing. They’ve managed to catch the edge of a bed spring and it creaks in time with Bucky’s thrusts, barely droned out by his harsh pants and muffled noises of pleasure. “Steve, Stevie,” Bucky suddenly whines, his hips leaping up suddenly. “I’m close. I can’t— Can’t take it.” 

“I got you,” Steve assures him. “Go Bucky. Give it to me.” 

“Fuck—” Bucky cuts off the word with a hard gulp, or else he’d risk a shout of his own. His head goes back in a silent scream, his throat straining against the urge as his whole body clenches, and his hands take Steve’s whole waist between them. Then the shout does come, only now Bucky’s strangled it into a broken sort of sigh. “Fuck…” He finishes with a gasp, and Steve can feel him go boneless between his legs. “Fuck, Steve. Oh my god.”

Now the ache is starting to really burn, and Steve shifts uncomfortably in Bucky’s embrace. “Buck—” 

“I know,” Bucky says, quickly coming back to himself, and reaches behind Steve to ease his softening cock free of Steve’s quivering body. “Shh,” Bucky whispers, when Steve gives a gentle cry at the sudden loss of tension. “You’re alright, you’re good. You did amazing, Stevie. You’re amazing. You’re _perfect_.”

Bucky gently rolls Steve onto his back, cradling him all the way down to the mattress. No one has ever told Steve he was _perfect_ before. Not with his asthma as his bird bones and his hearing. He’d be half blind if it weren’t for the LASIK surgery that he bought with his mom’s life insurance. The sum total of all those parts certainly don’t add up to _perfect_. 

Bucky slips off the bed and Steve winces, little ribbons of pain tying into knots all over his body as he curls up. Everything is relaxed and everything hurts, all at once, but he’s sticky and sweaty and he can feel the come leaking out between his thighs as he lets his muscles work themselves back to where they belong. Steve yanks off his BTEs and holds them in his closed fist, keeping his eyes squeezed shut. Soon, sleep tugs his exhausted frame until he starts feeling heavy on the mattress, and he only halfway succeeds in shaking himself awake. 

He wonders if he’ll have any clothes on at all by the time he wakes up in his lab.


	17. New York March 10, 1943 - Filling in the Losses

“Hey pal,” Bucky quietly greets him, and Steve has to get used to the echo in his partly deaf ears. “Got a hot towel for you. That okay?”

Steve sighs as the heat presses between his legs, Bucky’s hot, wet towel soaking up the sting from his delicate hole, and blinks enough times to clear the fog of approaching sleep. 

“S’nice,” he slurs, feeling the heat spread in a pleasant tingle. Bucky smiles down at him. 

“Yeah, thought so,” he says, and Steve doesn’t ask if that was the same dish towel Bucky was using when he cooked their pancakes. Bucky sits there for a few minutes, carefully dabbing the hot cloth against the most sensitive parts of Steve’s body before cleaning off the rest. His hands are so tender when he eases Steve’s knees apart, or lifts Steve’s soft cock, that he may as well still be kissing him rather than wiping up sweat and come and coconut scented oil. “There we go,” he says, finally finished, then quickly wipes down his own body, careless now that he’s just handling himself.

He chucks the towel across the room, and grins foolishly when it makes a heavy, wet slap into the sink. “I need a minute,” Bucky says, relaxing back onto the bed next to him. He caught sight of Steve’s bare ears, and Steve can tell he’s speaking louder than before. “Then I’m going to grab some soap and take a proper shower. Brush my teeth. All of that. Do you want to go first?” 

“Wish I had a toothbrush,” Steve says, since now the pancakes taste like a mess in his mouth, too much sugar to do well after all that. 

Bucky’s whole face twists in an expression Steve doesn’t think he’s aware he’s making, before he sighs and sits up. That was one short minute, Steve thinks. He gathers up the bathrobe that’s still clinging to the bedpost, half on the floor after all that action, and drags it up over his shoulders. “Woulda’ been nice,” Bucky says, then struggles against that nervous smile Steve’s getting to know. “If we had time for you to leave a toothbrush here.” 

Ouch. Steve wishes he could give Bucky what he wants, which admittedly isn’t a whole lot. Just someplace he could write letters to, someone waiting for him back home. There’s no hope of that, so Steve tries to think of something to lighten the mood instead. “I could fit in a suitcase,” he reasons suddenly. “Could just come along with you.” 

Bucky bursts out laughing, even slaps his own forehead and leans far enough back that eventually he has to collapse back down on the bed. Tears gather at the crinkles on the corner of his eyes, and he has to sniff a few times as he wipes them away. “You little punk,” he laughs. “That’d never work!” 

“Suitcase soldiers!” Steve says, and a fresh wave of laughter crashes over Bucky before he snorts in an effort to be quiet for the neighbors. “They have them in the future,” Steve insists, not letting him off the hook that easy, and Bucky goes almost purple from holding it in. Steve starts laughing too. “What’s so funny? I should know!” 

Bucky gets ahold of himself, wipes his eyes again, and a few lingering chuckles hitch up his shoulders as he sits back up. “Do you really?” Bucky says. “You really from the future, Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century?” 

Steve misses the dark undercurrent of Bucky’s question. “Sure! Little bite sized battalions. Like you said, the jerrys would never see ‘em coming.” 

Bucky snickers at that, but then quietly asks. “If you’re from the future, can you tell me that we win?” 

Steve’s smile freezes on his face, and their laughter is snuffed out like a candle flame. “I’m— ” Steve aborts whatever it was he was going to say. Bucky needs this. He isn’t asking if he lives, he isn’t looking for Steve to give him a prediction of his future like a fortune teller, because he already has that much figured out. He just needs Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century to tell him he’s not going to die for nothing. As far as Bucky’s concerned, he’s not coming home.

“I’ll find you,” Steve swears, and rises up on his knees, so that Bucky knows he means it. “I swear it. I’ll find you. Bucky Barnes of the one-oh-seventh, Army Infantry Division.” 

A cautious half of a smile makes an appearance across Bucky’s face, like he’s not quite sure if he’s being made fun of. “Find me? How?”

“I don’t know.” Steve needs to figure this out, needs to figure out how to remember Bucky when he goes back to the present, needs to look him up and find out what happens to him. “I’ll come back for you though. I swear it.” It shouldn’t be impossible. What would the point of all this be if he only came to the past these two times? What was he even here for if this was it? 

“Yeah, alright pal. You keep talkin’ like that and I’ll be sure you’re a spy.” 

Steve snorts. “They’d never hire a spy that looks like me.”

“That’s exactly why they’d hire a spy that looks like you,” Bucky argues, and Steve’s not sure if he’s still playing or not. “If not the Germans, then maybe the Russians. We shouldn’t really trust the Reds anyhow.”

Reds. Russians. Something clicks in Steve’s mind. “The journal.” 

“What journ—”

“The journal!” Steve shouts. How could he have forgotten? 

“Oh, _that_ journal,” Bucky drawls out sarcastically, pulling his bathrobe tighter around himself and throwing the belt into a loose knot. 

“No, I’m serious! A red journal, about this big,” Steve makes a rectangle out of his fingers, about five inches by seven. “Leather cover, embossed with a solid black star near the top. That’s what I’m looking for.” 

Bucky regards Steve carefully, his hands still on his belt. Steve can practically see the wheels turning as a few, silent moments go by, and Bucky finally stands up. “Don’t know nothing about a journal like that,” he admits, sounding a little tired by the whole game.

Bucky hasn’t stepped foot out of New York yet—save for his basic training in Jersey, if that even counts—so that shouldn’t be a surprise. Still, the frustration starts to get to him. Details are finally starting to float to the surface, after tripping through past New York like it was some kind of fever dream, and only now everything starts to feel real. 

Shield’s and their pure history as a liberator during the Second World War suddenly called into question; Sharon Carter, intrepid reporter, feeding intel to his boss; and Phil Coulson, art historian and researcher, vanished for asking the wrong questions. Bucky Barnes, his portrait sitting in Steve’s lab, stuck in the middle, locked on a canvas with a red notebook in his possession.

Steve swallows, remembering one of the x-rays that showed Bucky missing a whole arm. Even with everything else in perspective, with all that history and the very real danger they face, that’s the detail that scares Steve the most right now. Does he mean it? Will he alter the timeline for the sake of one person? One look at Bucky and he knows his answer. 

“I swear I’ll find you,” he says again. It’s not really an alteration, anyway. It’s just a tiny effort to fill in some gaps. Steve can help fill in the losses of Bucky’s life, just like he is with Bucky’s portrait, restoring it to what it was meant to be, conserving it for the future. All that pride and courage and charm and tenderness doesn’t exist just to be snuffed out. It just _doesn't_. 

“Sure, pal,” Bucky says, not quite on the same wavelength as Steve on how literally he means it. Bucky picks up a mug next to his small sink that has a toothbrush and a metal tube of Colgate. “I’ll be a few minutes.” Bucky stops with his hand on the knob, taps his foot and turns back around, trying to look unconcerned. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?” 

Steve figures he’s still got a few hours, based off ‘future time’. “Yeah,” he says. “Course.” 

Bucky just gives him a relieved smile and slips out of the apartment. Then, Steve gets to work. He starts by putting his clothes back on, which somehow managed to wind up strewn all over the apartment, like they exploded off him. He also digs his phone out of his back pocket, and immediately has to scramble to catch the photobooth picture he’d already managed to forget about when it flutters to the floor. 

It’s just how he’d found the dance card, right before tossing his jeans in the wash and proof of Bucky’s name in the trash. He has no idea why he hadn’t been able to remember his time here, but it worries him that he’d been starting to forget his life in the future in much the same way now that he’s back. His life seems to be split in two, and he’s incapable of fully living in both halves, the one turning into a foggy dream when he visits the other.

Holding his phone in his hands, flipping through the apps, makes him feel a little more grounded. A smartphone is so anachronistic in the forties, there’s no mistaking his situation. Steve doesn’t have any photos of _The Winter Soldier_ on his phone, since those were all taken with the lab’s archival camera, but that’s not what he was looking for. Instead, Steve taps the button to turn on the front-facing camera, then hits record.

“ _The Winter Soldier_ is Bucky Barnes, one-oh-seventh, Army Infantry Division. Look him up at that museum. Major Wilson might help you. Use the photos in your phone case.” Steve plays back the video, his own voice tinny and distant as his bad ears struggle to pick up his words. Recordings always sound terrible without his hearing aids, but it will have to do. At least it reminds him to fish his hearing aids out of the blankets where they’d wound up, and he flexes his jaw as they settle into place.

Before Steve stashes his phone back in his pocket, he takes one more look at the small, sepia-toned photos, eyes lingering on Bucky’s surprised laughter captured in that last image. If the dance card came back with him, then this would too, making it much easier to prove to himself what’s going on. His heart taps his rib cage, scolding him for overlooking the real reason he’s glad to have the photos, but Steve ignores it. He pops his Vitruvian Man case apart from his phone and lays the folded photo flat against the back, keeping it safely sandwiched in place before reassembling everything. He’ll remember them after he sees his message to himself, and this way there’s less of a chance they’ll wind up disintegrated in the laundry.

Although, how will he think to check his photos and watch this video in the first place? He should write himself a note.

The door squeaks open, and Steve jams his phone back in his pocket while Bucky looks him up and down. “You going?” 

“Not yet,” Steve says, and now he feels awkward, dressed and ready to go. Bucky’s wet hair falls into his lashes, his skin looks soft and pink around his eyes, bringing out the blue. His bathrobe is beige, nothing special, but it makes him look small and swaddled, and Steve gets a terrible idea. “Um. I want to show you. This thing.” 

Bucky joins him on the bed, still dripping. Steve can smell soap on him, toothpaste, and even tobacco.

“Were you smoking?”

Bucky laughs. “Ah. Busted. Been tryin’ to quit. Didn’t think I’d get laid right before I shipped out, though, so I figured I’d have one more for the road. Plus, it’s my birthday, so there.” 

Steve is genuinely surprised Bucky would bother, with everything he has on his plate right now. “Why quit now?”

“You told me you didn’t like it, on account of your asthma. Figured maybe you knew something I didn’t. My sister’s got it, too. Did I tell you that?” 

Steve nods, and Bucky continues. “Right. So I figure, maybe it’s not so great, and they give us rations for ‘em on the front. If I don’t smoke ‘em away, I can trade ‘em for other things.” Bucky runs his hand through his wet hair to get it out of his eyes. “Anyway…” 

“Smart,” Steve says, and pulls out his phone. “Um. This is a cell phone.”

Bucky’s arm freezes in mid air, fingers still caught up in slick, dark strands as his eyes drop to Steve’s hands. “Okay.” 

“The time is wrong because it’s designed to work with a- well, a sort of network like radio, only you don’t have the right kind here. This button is also a fingerprint scanner, which is why it didn’t unlock the phone when you pushed it.” Steve squares his thumb on the button and the lock screen lifts, like a curtain, along with Bucky’s eyebrows. “Most of the functionality won’t work without that network. So I guess I can show you a few things…” 

Bucky is utterly silent as Steve opens his calculator, his mail, his text app. He doesn’t even ask any questions, just watches Steve operate it, eyes wide with frank curiosity. Steve doesn’t have any music downloaded on his phone since he listens to streaming internet radio, and certainly doesn’t have any movies. Bucky is astonished enough by the basic functionality of a touch screen that it hardly matters. Then Steve shows him the camera, which Bucky thinks is delightful, and they take a dozen pictures together. Then Steve shows him that it also records ‘motion pictures’, thinking Bucky would love that even more, but instead he goes quiet again.

“So this thing,” Bucky says, watching a tiny version of himself, waving up at them from the glossy little screen. “It’s something for spies? To record things in America?” 

Steve snorts. “Jesus, Bucky I’m not a spy!” 

“Then what—” 

“I’m from the future.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “How could I forget,” he says, and flops down on his back, letting his legs dangle off the side of the bed. His bathrobe falls open, but he’s past caring about it. “The twenty- _first_ century, to boot.”

So despite that one, vulnerable moment when he asked if they’d win, Bucky really doesn’t believe him. Steve figured that would happen if he tried to explain himself. Even though he could go on, could tell Bucky all about the rest of the war, the end of Germany, the continued fight in the Pacific, the _bomb_ , he just gives up. The mattress complains when Steve flops down next to Bucky, but he sighs contentedly next to the warm, solid form. 

“Damn right.” The food, the sex, the comfort, it’s all enough to make Steve feel a bit drowsy and stupid, and soon he’s curled up against the soft bathrobe, Bucky’s arm around him, lips pressing slow, gentle kisses into his forehead. “I’ll still find you, though,” he promises, and he thinks he hears Bucky say, ‘ _I know you will, pal,_ ’ before he carelessly drifts off— 

—Steve bends over to pick up his brush, and a wave of disorientation knocks him sideways. He straightens up too quickly, the room swoops away, and he stumbles backward into his work station. He shouts when his hip bangs into the solid, resin edge of his lab bench. 

“Fuck!” Then he suddenly has the urge to vomit, like he indulged on sugary carnival food right before wobbling onto a rollercoaster. “Oooh, fuck.” 

Steve grabs ahold of the bench to steady himself, and sucks in a few, long breaths until the nausea passes. What happened? Did he forget to eat again? Steve can practically feel himself turn green again with the thought of food, and quickly moves on to other questions. What time is it? How late has he been working? 

Steve wobbles back toward his easel, pulls off his lab coat, and freezes. “Fuck!” 

_The Winter Soldier_ ’s arm is missing.


	18. Gaps

“Crikey O’Reilly!” When Peggy is this angry, her British tends to come out in astonishingly creative insults. “Steven Rogers, if you weren’t the absolute best restorer this side of the Pacific Ocean I would fire you so fast it’d feel like the devil himself shat you out!” 

Steve winces, opens his mouth, but she spears the air in front of him with one blood red fingernail as a warning, and he aborts his excuse. Instead, he glances back at the painting he wasn’t supposed to start work on yet, not until Alexander Pierce and Shield’s had approved the restoration plan. 

“Send me the restoration plan. _Immediately_.” Peggy puts the bridge of her nose between her fingers and pinches, then tosses her curls back with a determined huff and lifts her chin. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix this. You take the rest of the day off. And for god’s sake get some sleep,” she adds, as Steve nods a wordless thanks to her and starts to leave before he catches her muttering, “You should be haunting a Dickensian orphanage, looking like that.” 

Steve thinks the comment might actually be too kind after he gets a look at his own face in the mirror. He stares for a long time after washing up in the restroom near his lab, following the dark rings under his eyes to his lank, greasy hair. Apparently, he had been up all night, carefully urging layers of paint off the soldier to reveal an earlier version of the painting. The soldier’s warm coloring returned, which is probably the only good side effect of the fact that Steve wound up uncovering the pinned sleeve of an amputee—all this without first gaining the permission of the painting’s owner. Steve hadn’t even started filling in the losses around the painting’s border, which would have been an obvious first step if he’d been thinking clearly. 

The thing is, he hadn’t actually been thinking at all. Steve had just spaced out, prepped a bottle of solvent, a bottle of restrainer, cotton cloth, blotting paper, swabs and brushes, then got to work. Uncovering layers from x-rays and chromographs is some of the most exacting work a conservator can do, precise and time consuming. Carefully stripping layers of paint, using laser-edged razors to break through hardened shells where some colors set more densely than others… It can be backbreaking work, and Steve had completed a full restoration in just under seven hours. Even Peggy had to admit, between bouts of colorful English swears, that the soldier looked almost alive, his skin glowing from under the thinned glaze, the drape of fabric on his pinned sleeve both subtle and disturbingly real.

Steve can’t remember any of it. His body, on the other hand, feels like he got hit by a truck. Even his ass hurts, and he wonders if he’d wound up breaking to use the toilet even once while he was—what? Blacked out? He should probably see a doctor. He’d probably hit his head harder than he thought when he gassed himself with turpentine, and the lost time is a side effect of a nasty concussion. His anxiety also seems to be on a rampage, a little voice in the back of his head telling him he’s forgetting something critically important, something he’d been supposed to do the moment he stopped working. He splashes a bit of water on his face and tries to forget it. There’s nothing he can do about anything right now.

By the time he gets home, his head swims with exhaustion. He warms up with a shower after the November morning had sapped all the heat from his bones, as if he weren’t used to walking home in New York winters, then collapses into bed wearing an undershirt and nothing else. Luckily, he remembers to plug in his dying phone in case someone tries to reach him, though nothing short of the apocalypse will likely be able to wake him once his head hits the pillow.

Being dead to the world has the unfortunate side effect of feeling like a filthy corpse in the morning, and having a messed up sleep schedule means ‘morning’ looks an awful lot like eight o’clock at night. Steve is finally dragged out of bed by a full bladder that would no longer accept any delays, and once he’s up, he’s up. He wriggles into a pair thick sweats and checks his email, which confirms he’s not fired, then checks his phone, which confirms he’s still very much in trouble with his boss. Tomorrow, Pierce will confirm the next step in the restoration plan, so Steve has his Monday free to make his trip up state. He’s still not entirely sure what to expect from Major Wilson’s offer, though thinking about that archive and the possibility to identify the soldier in the painting is still encouraging. Steve’s halfway through some reheated spaghetti when he gets his latest email. 

“Oh, shit…” Peggy sent him a follow up to his restoration plan, which now includes the updated image of a conspicuously armless soldier. However, that’s not what caught his eye. In his retreat from the scene of his crime, Steve had missed something else he’d apparently restored: the original artist’s _signature_. It’s a ornate sort of monogram, rather than a full name. _A.Z._ or possibly even _Z.A._ depending on if the _A_ was being strangled by the _Z_ or stamping it out. Steve zooms in, unable to see exactly which letter is supposed to be foremost, then gives up and checks the chromograph. According to Banner’s imaging, the paint from the _A_ had been laid down in elegant calligraphy first, and is the same age as the rest of the painting. 

“A.Z.,” Steve says out loud, getting used to the initials of the mysterious artist. He opens the catalogue of items from the art hoard submitted with _The Winter Soldier_ ’s provenance, and searches the list of artists. It’s quite a list, everything from Picasso to Vermeer to Cezanne and Degas. No names starting with _Z_ , and Alonso Cano’s portrait of _Saint Agnes_ and Anthonis van Dyck's _Lamentation of Christ_ are the only _A_ ’s. 

He sits back in his chair, crosses his ankles and flips through his mental rolodex of artists. Auguste Zwiller floats to the surface—a French painter who died during World War II, most known for portraits in oil. After quick Google search Steve checks that name off the list, since Zwiller died in 1939 and the soldier didn’t wind up in the war until 1943. 

Even though it’s getting late—nearly midnight and Steve has an early start tomorrow to get to Saratoga Springs ahead of rush hour traffic—he microwaves a frozen burrito into a molten hot dinner, and picks up the hunt online. As he carefully eats, blowing on every other bite to cool off the bubbling beans and cheese, he searches around for a few more names and scrolls through his go-to online databases. After all that, he still comes up with zilch. 

Only after he closes his laptop and climbs back into bed for the night does it suddenly occur to him that he has no reason to assume the soldier went to war in 1943. Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941 so it’s possible he might have been in the very first wave. Thinking about it re-ignites the anxious pull in the back of his mind, that feeling that he hasn’t studied for an approaching exam, or that he’s left his wallet someplace stupid. It’s maddening, and he paces around his apartment, checking his keys, making sure the fan in his bathroom is switched off, and going so far as to check the locks on his windows. The last one was extra pointless because his windows have been painted shut the whole time he’s lived here, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s forgotten something, something critical, something about the painting, or the soldier, or— 

“Fuck it,” he sighs, and climbs back into bed. To drone out the buzzing alarm in the back of his mind, Steve turns his television to World War II in Color, a documentary with colorized war time footage, and eventually drifts back off. 

When his alarm chimes, Steve launches out of his nightmare so quickly he’s up and out of bed with a galloping heart and shaking hands before he knows what’s happening. He snatches his phone from the nightstand and tries his damnedest to silence the alarm, but winds up fumbling it halfway across the room and it smashes to the floor, breaking free from the phone case and skittering under a chair. 

“Holy goddamn shit,” Steve mutters. What a way to start the day. He’s already forgotten whatever nightmare his alarm woke him from, but his spine is lit up with adrenaline while sweat cools across his bare shoulders. He collects his phone, fishes his phone case from where it lodged itself under the edge of his rug, and fumbles again when something else slips from his fingers. At first he thinks he managed to just pick up a slip of garbage, a receipt or a piece of junk mail, until he realizes it was stuck to the inside of his case.

When he folds open the card, he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Old fashioned, sepia toned photos look up at him, folded in the exact middle between a set of four snapshots printed on the one sheet. The images are a little blurry, in a way that cheap photos from a photo booth always are, but the faces are unmistakable. There is Steve, wearing his outfit from yesterday, smiling beside another man as he gets his ear violated. There’s another photo of them kissing and in the last one Steve wears the other man’s cap.

A soft cry rises up inside him, like the truth has to be yanked out of the yawning pit forming in his stomach, and a name falls from his lips like a stone. “Bucky.” 

Bucky? The same name from the dance card he found in his pocket days ago. Steve shoves his fingers into his hair, that earlier anxiety pulverizing his defenses and turning into full blown fear. What’s happening to him? He looks down at the photo again, whispering that name, remembering a soft brush of lips against his throat along with it. His body reacts to that thought with brazen arousal and Steve feels sick. 

Where did that dance card wind up? 

Steve tosses his recycling can but finds nothing except for junk mail and microwave meal boxes. His garbage can isn’t much better, but a whole lot messier. He’d emptied it the day before yesterday, since he had been at work late all week and let things overflow to the floor. That means the dance card is in the dumpster downstairs, which is emptied on Monday mornings, around six if he remembers correctly. Steve checks the time, then stops himself. 

No. He is not going to jump into the dumpster to look for a scrap of paper that probably never existed in the first place. He looks at the photos in his hand, then shuts his eyes, as if blinking hard enough could reboot his brain and he’d have a reasonable explanation for this. Instead he smells popcorn, hears the woosh of a rollercoaster, the din of a happy crowd outside and announcers over tinny loud speakers claiming their inventions are ‘visions of the future.’ 

Steve’s alarm goes off again, the snooze timer running down to a reminder set to urge him on his way to the Military History Museum. The Met has a number of vehicles in their fleet, and luckily he’d been able to check out a little hybrid Chevy rather than one of the big vans, but he has nowhere to park it near his own apartment and still has to commute into Manhattan to pick it up. He’s torn between his practical task, one that was planned and reasonable if a little reckless given Peggy’s warning about Shield’s, and his relentless compulsion to solve this far more complicated riddle. 

There’s so much going on in these strange, impossible photos. The way Steve’s shoulders are all scrunched up, mid-flinch as the soldier bites his ear. The cautious kiss in the next photo, followed by a far more aggressive one, where Steve even holds the soldier’s face between his own, over-large hands as the cap starts to tilt dangerously back off the soldier’s head. That last photo, Steve wearing that cap, saluting with a grin of victory as the soldier laughs so hard he’s almost blurred out. Steve smiles, his belly warming as if it remembers that moment, even though he can only imagine it. 

It only makes that growing panic pulse louder in his ears. He’s so, _so_ close. What is he missing? The dance card. The photos. That can’t be it. A message? Something that he was meant to find. Steve checks his palm for a handwritten note, but he’s not sure what might still be there since he had taken a shower since he got home. Besides, he hasn’t done that since college, but the panic is making him stupid, so he sits on the edge of his bed and thinks, phone in one hand, photos in the other. 

As soon as his heart rate goes down, Steve has the sudden idea to check his phone’s photos. The last couple of recent snapshots are just smudges of color in a dark field, but a few swipes into it, Steve finds a video file. When he taps the little white play button, he isn’t sure what to expect. The screen is solid black, flickers and starts as if its stuck buffering. The audio is equally terrible, not much more than rustles and bursts, like someone is intentionally breathing hard into the microphone while speaking too far from it to effectively hear them.

The message is so garbled he has to listen to it half a dozen times, but Steve’s own, detached voice comes through loud and clear when he says, ‘ _The Winter Soldier_ is Bucky Barnes’.

“Bucky Barnes,” Steve whispers, feeling the name in his own mouth as his mind claws across a chasm towards something just out of reach. “Bucky Barnes…” The photos should explain everything, but they don’t. The video on his phone means something, but not something Steve can understand. 

That’s when Steve recognizes the sense of unease he’s had ever since he snapped out of it in his lab. He’s _looking_ for something, something terribly important, and clearly that something is Bucky Barnes. Bucky Barnes, the _soldier_ in the _painting_.

It starts to feel more natural in his mind the more he repeats it. _Bucky_ isn’t exactly a common name, awkward and foreign from a different culture at the turn of the century. By the time he steps off the subway, it’s as familiar as a comfortable old sweater. Bucky. Bucky Barnes. Steve can recall the scent of cigarettes and hair pomade and a hint of something tropical and sweet, like mango or… _coconut_? 

He has to resist the urge to make a detour downstairs to his lab, to look at the painting one more time with his own two eyes. It’s just sitting there, waiting for Pierce to come examine it, to review his detailed restoration plan as Peggy smooths out Steve’s itchy trigger finger that had restored the painting to an earlier version before they’d got Pierce’s permission. Instead, he picks up his borrowed car keys from Luis, tosses his messenger bag on the passenger seat, and gets on the road.

Now that he has a name, he and Major Wilson will have a lot more to look for.


	19. Monuments Men

It takes a little over three hours to reach Saratoga Springs. 

Steve makes as few stops as possible once he leaves Manhattan, mostly for gas and coffee. Luckily there’s about three dozen Dunkin’ Donuts along the way, and he’s able to fend off grogginess with caffeine and plenty of sugar. He plays music as loud as is physically comfortable to distract himself from what’s in his messenger bag. He’d never compared the detailed, digital images of the painting on his computer with the photos he found in his phone case, and doesn’t really need to. He’s intimately familiar with the cut of that jaw, the cleft in that chin, and those pale eyes, as though he’d spent hours studying the subject and painted that portrait himself. 

Steve sags over the steering wheel when he finally parks at the curb outside of the Military History Museum. He has no right. _The Winter Soldier_ is not his painting, or even his property. It’s his responsibility as far as the restoration and conservation goes, but after that it will likely be auctioned off or hung in some exhibit celebrating the mysterious Karpov art hoard. 

“Okay, Rogers,” he chides himself. “Get your shit together.” It’s just another restoration project, a search for the truth, like how he’d worked through the chronograph to understand that signature, or how he’d dug through the evidence to uncover that Bouguereau forgery. And damn, doesn’t that feel like _years_ ago by now. He climbs out of the Chevy, slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and stomps up the walk to keep up his determination as he approaches the museum’s wide, arched entrance. 

It’s a red brick building, with a peaked roof, narrow windows, and two towers complete with crenelations giving it the look of a fortress. There’s a lawn out front, frosted over from the chilly weather, and a squat Sherman tank with snow tipping the barrel of its outward facing guns. All very welcoming, for a museum. 

“Steve Rogers?” 

Steve leaps about a foot in the air when someone behind him says his name, and wheezes out a hello when he sees a man standing under a tree on the lawn, wearing a leather moto jacket and a beanie.

“Yes! Hello!” He stammers out, catching his breath. 

“Sorry about that!” the man says, and holds out his hand. “Sam Wilson.”

“M-Major. Nice to meet you,” Steve says, a little surprised by Wilson’s appearance. High cheekbones frame an elegantly narrow face, with wide eyes and perfect African complexion. He looks like a movie star and Steve feels like a sloppy mess in comparison.

“Just Sam when I’m off duty,” he says with a smile. He has a small gap in his front teeth, one of those imperfections that would have made anyone else look like a dingus but only adds a layer of charm to an already handsome face. 

“Sure, Sam,” Steve says, remembering to let go of the handshake before it gets weird. “How did you know it was me?” 

Sam points to Steve’s Chevy, the Met logo all along the side of the car’s white finish in a bright red decal. “Figured there wouldn’t be many artists coming to visit on a day the museum was closed.” 

“Oh, I’m only a restorer,” Steve insists, but he doesn’t take it as an offense. Most people make that mistake. “And I’ve got great news. I found a name of our soldier. Hopefully that’ll make it easier to track him down.” 

“Well, alright! It’ll be hell of a lot easier to check the database, than to stare at some painting and hope for the best,” Sam says, and something clenches inside Steve’s heart that wants to defend _The Winter Soldier_ as being far more than ‘some painting,’ but immediately lets it go. Sam is being generous with his time, opening the museum on his day off, simply to give Steve access to the archives. He takes Steve on a brief tour, points out the different wings, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, and all the way up to the most recent Gulf War. Tall glass cases hold battle-faded uniforms, information placards line the walls highlighting milestones in each conflict. Weapons, footlockers, and personal items spill out of battered satchels in exhibits that try to paint a picture of who the men and women actually were that took up arms to defend their country. It’s not as maudlin as Steve would have thought, despite the tragic facts of losses and confessions of military blunders printed right there in black and white. It’s actually relatively peaceful, like any museum, despite the unfriendly exterior and the tank out front, ready for action.

“There’s a good reason why we’re also the Veteran’s Research Center,” Sam explains, and uses a key card to lead them through a number of doors marked Registered Personnel Only. “We have records of all the soldiers and sailors coming into and out of the Service from the State of New York. There’s a digital database, but also a hard copy archive in case we get stuck.”

They stop in a relatively plain office, with a series of desks and a stash of servers off to one side. The air conditioning in this room is still going strong, despite the air outside. No wonder Sam never removed his coat. He sits down at one of the stations. “Pull up a chair,” he offers. “Hopefully, this won’t take too long.” Steve does as he’s told, and Sam clicks through a few windows. “What’s the name?”

“Bucky Barnes,” Steve says, and Sam turns to face him with a look of surprise.

“That a legal first name?” 

Steve is about to answer yes, of course, but then stops to think. “I don’t know actually. It’s the only name I got.” 

“Okay. Barnes with an ‘e’? Or a slavic Barns, without it?”

Again, Steve has to admit he doesn’t know. 

“Let’s just see what we come up with,” Sam says with a wink, and starts with Barnes-with-an-e. “Well. Three hundred Barnes’s,” he says with a sigh. “And two hundred without the e. Not a single Bucky.” 

“How is that possible?” Steve gusts out. “There’s so many.” 

“Over sixteen million folks served in World War II,” Sam says, not looking surprised but definitely a bit disappointed. “Barnes isn’t exactly a unique name.” 

“Damn it,” Steve whispers. So, ‘Bucky’ was just a nickname. How stupid of Steve not to figure that much out. What kind of name is ‘Bucky’ anyway? “Does it narrow it down that he was infantry?”

“Ah, Army or Marines?”

“Army.” 

Sam nods, adds a few filters to his search. “Volunteer or draft?”

“Volunteer,” Steve answers mechanically, and even though he second guesses it, sticks with that answer for now. 

“Hundred twenty-three, with an e. Only fifty without,” Sam answers, scrolling down the list of names. Howard, Harold, Robert, John, James, Frederick, dates of birth and death stamped beside each one to differentiate them all from one another. “Let’s see that painting of yours.”

Steve fishes his laptop out of his bag, loads up his image files and displays closeups of Bucky’s face.

“Are there two?” Sam asks, brow crinkled in confusion as he looks between the cold toned version and the warmer one. 

Steve shakes his head. “Just at different states in the restoration. His face looked pretty different between the two. Figured it’d help if I referenced both” 

“Let’s see the whole picture,” Sam suggests, and Steve opens a few more wide shot ones, goes through a number of details, like a tour of his very own as Sam nods a along. 

“So we can guess your guy is probably anywhere between eighteen and thirty five, which will rule out the old guys who served in the first war. Also, he probably joined between November 1941 and July 1943.”

“How can you tell?” Steve looks between Sam’s concentrating scowl to his laptop screen. 

“Those are Type 2 tags, only issued between those dates,” Sam points to the glint of silver hanging down from Bucky’s collar, visible behind his loose necktie. “Once August of forty-three came along, the army had better things to do, so they started printing less information on them. Just names, serial numbers, immunization and religion. No addresses or next of kin. We can’t read what’s printed on his tags, but you can clearly see a full five lines of info. Not just two.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He really should have done this sooner, but the information is fascinating. It’s more than just tracking down the chemical analysis of a painting, more than identifying the same models from different periods within a painter’s canon. It delves deep into the history of every aspect of soldiers in wartime, much like learning about a painter’s master, and patrons and best customers all at once. Under different circumstances, this would be a hell of a lot of fun. 

“Also, he was a Sergeant, at least at the time,” Sam adds, pointing to the stacked triple chevron on the shirt sleeve. Sam has a determined focus to him when he works, which Steve can instantly relate to. He also has impeccable posture, which Steve is instantly jealous of. Because Steve’s feet don’t touch the floor on a lot of standard height chairs, he tends to sit cross legged in them, and hunches over like a goblin. Sam points at Bucky’s crooked lapels. “Infantry, like you said, according to the pins.” 

Steve wonders if he should also share the image of Bucky minus one arm, but decides to hold that one back for now. “Sergeant Barnes, Army Infantry, between the ages of eighteen and thirty five, from New York, joined between November 1941 and July 1943…” Steve tallies up all these fresh facts about Bucky in his mind, loading it up like a dossier to fill in all the gaps. He squeezes his phone, which is once again hiding the photobooth images of him and Bucky together. “What about the village?” 

“That’s a fun one,” Sam says. “We actually have records of different towns in the European theater, especially with bell towers—tactical positions for snipers,” he adds, to answer Steve’s look of surprise. “And of course any rail line is also a supply line, so we have those tallied too. Unfortunately, that archive is a little harder to search.”

Sam then leads Steve into the materials archive, down several flights of stairs in to what could only be the building’s vaulted basement. Tall shelves line the room, stacked up to the ceiling with cardboard cartons. It reminds Steve of evidence file rooms he’s seen on cop shows, boxes sorted and labeled according to a complicated system with its own rules and guidelines. Sam turns on another set of lights, and Steve sees the room extends approximated _forever_ in both directions. A million unsolved mysteries, just waiting to be searched through. 

Sam is quiet for a minute, letting Steve take it all in, then casually asks, “Do you want some terrible coffee from the lounge? This might take a while.” 

Steve grins. “I could do this all day.” 

Luckily for Steve, Sam is just as excited about solving mysteries as he is. Along the way, he learns more about the Air Force Major, who started off in pararescue before moving over to a non-combat position. Apparently, he saw enough guys get ‘lost’ and thought this would be a good way to find a few. He gives Steve a smile when he says this, passing him a box of war-time railway maps from France, and Steve is grateful to have him on his side. He hopes that whatever’s happening with Shield’s doesn’t follow him up here, and get Sam into some kind of trouble. 

Hours into their search, after only one break for sandwiches from a restaurant across the street, and countless cups of (accurately named) terrible coffee from the lounge, they’re no closer to identifying which “Barnes” wound up captured in _The Winter Soldier_. The only clue they’ve managed to turn up is a hamlet named Azzano, which seems to be the most likely candidate for the source of the painting’s background. Deep in Northern Italy, surrounded by mountains, it has the unique feature of being very near the Austrian border, with a rail line running North to South. The nearest station is just on the other side of a small church, with a tall bell tower marking the highest manmade structure for miles around, and a perfect sniper’s nest.

“Well, this is interesting,” Sam says, leaning back in his chair to give his eyes a rest from the faded map. “I knew I heard of this rail station before. Apparently, the Monuments Men tracked a train full of stolen art out of this village.” 

“The Monuments Men?” Everyone in the art world heard of them. The soldiers who were involved in the arts before joining up, that were tasked with the special mission to rescue and restore Europe’s looted cultural property from the Nazis. Heroic stuff, especially to a restoration artist. There was even a movie about them. “Hell of a coincidence,” Steve says, spreading out another small stack of black and white photographs with brittle edges of the town.

“If you believe in that sort of thing,” Sam says, making it clear that he doesn’t. “The Monuments Men lost the art, but found a bunch of POWs there, locked up in some castle. The prisoners almost escaped into this underground cistern but the gates were locked. If the Monuments Men hadn’t been trying to track down the art, they probably would have been shot to the man. With them coming in, the Nazis took off with the art, and left the prisoners behind. I always thought it was a spooky story when I learned about it, and I guess the name stuck.”

“Do you have a list of names for the soldiers?” 

“Let’s look,” Sam says, because he can feel it to. They’re on to something, because indeed, there’s no such things as coincidences when looking through art history. The names are hard to sort through since it looks like it had been a mix of American, French and English soldiers all captured and hidden away. Sam finds one list with a ‘Richard B. Barnes’ who was found dead, and Steve’s heart constricts until Sam shakes his head and says, “Not him. This guy was English.” 

Sam dives back into the archives to track down the Monuments Men’s files in particular, thinking they might have been filed under the more conspicuous category. Once they have the carton for the correct region, they flip through file after file. Sam fishes out a sketch of the Roman cistern that runs under the castle, a narrow, expansive underground structure that stretches for miles towards what is clearly marked as an Allied enemy line. If those prisoners hadn’t encountered that locked gate, they could have been home free. The thought is chilling.

“Alright, here we are. Number of American soldiers rescued from Krausberg, Austria, taken to Azzano, Italy by the Monuments Men, November third, 1943.” Sam mutters to himself as he goes down the line, reading out a few notes and figures before scanning through the A’s and Steve licks his lips. “Sergeant J.B. Barnes, 107th Army Infantry Division.”

Steve’s heart leaps. “That’s him. That’s got to be him.” 

Sam shoves this document up above a separate ledger. “Write this down.” 

Steve has been taking notes in his own journal while they dug through the cartons, and his hands are steady and sure as Sam reads off the service number: 32557038. 

“Got it?” Sam checks and Steve nods. “Good. I gotta tell you though, it would have been a long time hunting through the list of volunteers.”

“How so?” 

“Well, we were on the right track about where he was from, the two in his number means he’s from the New York area. But the three at the front there? It means he was drafted.” Sam’s voice goes softer as he watches for Steve’s reaction. “He didn’t volunteer. ”

“Oh,” Steve feels that conflicts with something he already knows about Bucky, but can’t explain what. Either way, the news is added to Bucky’s dossier he’s keeping in his mind, punctuated by that sadness, and maybe even a bit of disappointment. 


	20. Following Orders

> _Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, 107th Army Infantry Division, service number 32557038. Drafted February 1st, 1943, shipped out to France on March 11th, 1943. Captured and wounded at Azzano, Italy. Official medical discharge from the United States Army November 10th 1943, after suffering a severed arm attempting to escape the castle in Krausberg, Austria._
> 
> _Died in the Austrian Alps, March 13th, 1945 in a train accident along the Danube River._

Steve stares at his last handwritten note, his knuckle caught between his teeth as he attempts to snuff out his grief. Under his thumb is a tiny, postage stamp sized portrait of Bucky, cap set at that jaunty tilt as always, but eyes blank as he holds a neutral expression for his identification photo. Of course Steve hadn’t dared hope the soldier in the mysterious painting would still be alive after all this time. He’d be a hundred years old by now, and who knows if he’d remember anything that happened during the war. For some reason, learning that Bucky had been killed over there, never making it back home after he’d been _drafted_ , is another matter altogether. And what had he been doing for a year after the medical discharge, only to wind up dying on a train in the Alps?

“So the painting,” Steve says, clearing his throat when his voice cracks, and hands the photo back to Sam. “He must’ve been painted after November third.”

“How’s that?” Sam says. He’s returning the last of the files to their cardboard carton, sealing them away until there’s another mystery that needs to be solved.

Steve doesn’t answer right away, and instead clicks through another series of files on his computer to display the one with the missing arm. “I uncovered this version the very last round of restoration I did on the canvas,” he confesses.

Sam pushes the cardboard lid down and squints at the display. “If I’d known he had a medical discharge, we could’ve started with those records.”

“Sorry,” Steve says. “I wasn’t sure if I should share this one, but it doesn’t seem to matter now. He must have died soon after this painting was finished. Maybe even before it was finished,” he amends quickly, thinking about how many layers of glazing it must have taken to reach such saturation and depth. The artist could have been laying down color for months after Bucky had already died. Crushed by debris or burned as the train caught fire. There’s a sick sort of irony that his portrait had been then frozen, and he’d become known as _The Winter Soldier._ Steve swallows again, has to plug a few more holes as grief starts to seep through the cracks.

“Rough way to go,” Sam agrees, catching on to Steve’s mood despite his best efforts to hide it. “We better call it a day. I know this all night diner down the road if you want to grab a bite before you head back.”

Steve nudges his phone, and blinks a few times when he sees it’s already past ten. “Damn it. I can’t, it’ll be past one by the time I get back.”

Steve starts shoving his own work back in his messenger bag. His phone is loaded up with photos of all the documents, papers and maps from Bucky’s tragic life. He just needs some time to order his thoughts and digest it all. The drive should help. “Thank you though. I really mean it. I don’t think I could have found him without you.”

“Glad to be of service to the Met,” Sam says, with a cute little shrug. “But hey, I expect free passes next time I’m in town.”

Steve finally stands, stretching out to try and get away from some of the heartache. “Are you kidding? I’ll give you a lifetime membership. Just shoot me your details and I’ll set it up with my boss. I think other restorers wouldn’t even dream of getting this kind of information about one of their projects.”

“Maybe you could return the favor someday,” Sam says. “There’s a long history between the military and art. I’m sure having someone at the Met would be handy if I need to chase down some wartime paintings myself.”

“It’d be an honor,” Steve says, and he doesn’t know why, but he performs a sloppy salute. The motion feels familiar, and Sam’s laugh is an echo of one Steve’s heard before. He feels a prickle of nerves scatter along his spine, and squeezes his phone again.

Steve speeds along the Taconic State Parkway, making good enough time, but still arrives past one in the morning at the Met’s lot. He’s exhausted, the hours of research capped off with the long, silent drive has taken it out of him, and he quickly climbs into bed once he finally gets home. Steve could laugh at how hard it is to fall asleep after the long day. Bucky’s life is nothing short of a nightmare, his near escape followed by a slow recovery and ultimately a meaningless death. Steve supposes it hadn’t been so unusual. There are probably hundreds of stories just like Bucky’s from those tumultuous times, and not just from soldiers, but from millions of civilians and holocaust victims who’d never again seen their homes or their families or the end of the war.

Had Bucky been scared at the end? In pain? Had he known what was happening? Maybe he’d died of smoke inhalation in his sleep. That thought triggers Steve’s asthma so hard he has to take two pumps off his inhaler before he dares get back into bed.

The sadness doesn’t leave him even after a night’s hard sleep, and Steve shuffles out from his tangled blankets the moment his alarm chimes. He plods through his morning routine, zones out on the subway, and heads downstairs with barely an upward glance when Luis greets him at the door. When Steve finally makes it to the bottom level, he looks up sharply to find Brock & Jock, standing beside his easel, and his heart leaps in his throat when he realizes what they are there for.

“What are you doing?” He furiously demands, after he flings the lab door open. “Get your hands off that painting!” Brock & Jock freeze, and both flinch away from _The Winter Soldier_ when they see Steve storming towards them. “What is this? Explain yourself!”

“Uh,” Jock says, and takes a step back towards Brock as Steve marches towards him.

“Whoa!” Brock says, then drops his raised hands into fists at his side, as if he only just realized that Steve is not much more than a yipping chihuahua compared to the two junkyard dobermans. “Hey pal, we’re just following orders. The boss said we have to load up the painting, so we’re loading up the painting.”

“Yeah?” Steve spits, not backing down even as Jock lifts his chin and puffs out his chest. “Which boss? I was supposed to have the painting until the end of the week.”

“This boss,” comes the familiar voice behind him, and Steve spins to find Alexander Pierce standing in the lab’s open doorway. He must have caught it before it swung shut after Steve had walked in, and Steve is pissed. His hearing aids must need to be adjusted because he couldn’t hear the man coming at all. “Sorry for the surprise. We only confirmed transport of the painting back to our private restoration team today. I just thought it would be best if Shield’s took it from here.”

Steve stares for just a moment, unsure how to play this since Peggy had warned him about this exact scenario. Her advice was to let them take it, to not put up any kind of fight if they came for the painting. Is Steve really going to let Bucky go, just like that? After everything he’d just discovered? Does he even have a choice?

Pierce nods to Brock & Jock for them to continue and Steve throws caution to the wind. “Oh really? Does your private restoration team have access to a autoradiography lab? Because that’s how I was able to identify the signature.” Steve points to the lower right corner of the painting, where the monogram is barely visible against a sliver of brick between the bars of the bicycle’s frame, and Pierce placidly follows his gaze. He squints and leans further forward.

“Z.A.?” Pierce reads. “That’s awfully vague.”

“A.Z.,” Steve tersely corrects. He doesn’t care if he’s being rude to more than likely the wealthiest man he’s ever met. He can read Pierce’s innocent act from a mile off. The man hadn’t needed to squint to see those letters, he’d only been trying to make it seem like a meaningless discovery. “The chromograph told me that much, and likely will tell me much more with some more time to study it. Autoradiography labs aren’t open for commercial use, you need a government contract to work with one. The Met has a grant from the State of New York.”

Pierce’s eyebrows twitch up, betraying his surprise only momentarily before he smooths his expression back into his infuriating brand of calm arrogance. “I guess it’s lucky you already did such a thorough job, and included the chromograph in your very thorough reports. Don’t get me wrong Mr. Rogers,” he adds, as if he had already forgotten Steve asked to be called by his first name. “I appreciate the work you’ve done for us. Dr. Carter explained your unorthodox methods, and I appreciate you restoring the subject to an earlier version. My own restoration team was terrified to even try melting the ice!”

“Would your own team know his name?” Steve blurts out, and something screams at him to stop, that innate sense that he’s taken a wrong turn, coloring outside of the lines. “Would they know how long he served? In what unit? Do they know what town this is in the background?”

At that, Pierce’s shock shows plainly on his face. “Do you?”

“This is what I do, Mr. Pierce,” Steve says. “I uncover the truth. It’s the only way to properly restore a painting. That soldier is meant to have two arms. There’s another layer beneath this one, according to the x-ray, and I intend to bring it up. If you want the original painting, the way A.Z. first intended it to look, you’ll leave this here until the end of the week, like we agreed.”

Pierce seems to consider this, and even Brock & Jock wait for his final decision. “You’re good at this,” Pierce finally says, though that’s not the answer Steve is looking for.

“I’m the best at this,” Steve corrects him, and crosses his arms. No sense in being humble in front of this guy, who probably looks down on everyone like they’re a bug to be examined or squashed.

“You looking to take your career in a new direction?” Pierce asks, and Steve blinks, confused by the sudden shift of topic. “I only ask, because in an ideal world I could have you both.”

Well, that’s a weird fucking thing to say. Steve frowns when he realizes he’s being offered a job. “Not interested.”

“A career on Shield’s restoration team starts at a six figure salary,” Pierce explains, as if Steve hadn’t understood him correctly.

“Then they’re overpaid,” Steve glibly tells him, and Pierce laughs.

“Alright,” he says with a defeated breath, holding up his hands in surrender. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll leave the painting with the Met for the rest of the week. Let’s see what you can do, Mr. Rogers. But I expect far more than just a restored painting by Sunday. I want to know everything you know about this painting’s subject. The village, the soldier...”

 _The red journal,_ Steve thinks so loudly he’s surprised that Pierce hadn’t said it himself.

“Alright, Rumlow, Rollins,” Pierce says, and Steve steps aside as Brock & Jock finally lumber away from his easel.

It’s then that Peggy comes in, file folder in hand, and pauses at the lab’s secure door. “I have the insurance paperwork to transfer the painting,” she cautiously starts, eyes flicking between Pierce and Steve to assess the situation. “Though why do I feel like I’ve come a might too late?”

“It’s a good thing you did,” Pierce cheerfully declares. “Steve, here, is going to finish the restoration after all. Back to the original version, as you advised when you went over the restoration plan.”

Steve notices how Pierce has switched to calling him by his first name, now that his boss has shown up, and says nothing when the man smiles at him.

“You have a hell of a restorer here,” he adds.

“Don’t I know it,” Peggy admits with a surprised, but happy grin, and tucks the portfolio under her arm. “Gives me hell all the time, anyway.”

Pierce chuckles at the good-natured jab and departs, leaving Peggy and Steve in silence all the way until they hear the elevator doors close at the end of the hall. Peggy instantly deflates then, and drops the paperwork on the lab bench. “Alright, Rogers. What did you promise him?”

“I found out who he is.”

“Who?” Peggy says, then follows Steve’s eyes to the painting. “The subject? Steve, why on earth would-”

“His name is—was—Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th Army Infantry Division. He was captured at a town called Azzano, then the Monuments Men traced a trainload of stolen art to a castle in Austria and found a POW camp instead. He lost his arm there, and eventually wound up on a train headed through the Austrian Alps, where he died in- in a crash.” Steve rushes it out to avoid choking on the swell in his throat, like darting his fingers through an open flame fast enough to avoid being burned.

Peggy is silent, regarding Steve carefully for a moment with those dark, round eyes of hers. Steve swallows, utterly spent. He isn’t sure why he feels so exposed telling her all this, as if it’s his own secrets he’s laying out for her to examine. She’d been ready and willing to hand the painting back over the Pierce, just to wash her hands of the situation. Would she really be interested in an opportunity to dig even deeper?

He continues, without even meaning to. “I even got his service number...”

“Alright. Clearly you’ve been busy...” she slowly starts, and takes a step towards the painting. Without looking back at Steve, she continues, “A train load of stolen art? Sounds like a hell of a coincidence.”

“If you believe in that sort of thing,” Steve miserably repeats Sam’s words.

“You know full well I do not,” she declares. “Would you mind if I sent Sharon this information? Off the record of course.”

“No,” Steve says, but his tone comes out a hell of a lot more hesitant than he intends. “I mean, sure. The more of us working on this the better.”

“I’ll see if she knows more about the Monuments Men and this mysterious train,” she says. “Maybe it wound up in Russia. Good work Steve,” she adds, before turning to leave. “It looks like we’ve dodged a bullet.”

Steve runs his hand along his forearm, and only then realizes his hair is standing on end. He promised _The Winter Soldier_ would be restored, and in Pierce’s hands by the end of the week, along with that whole intimate history he barely wanted to share with Peggy. Steve looks at Bucky, can see that longing gaze peering out at him, watching him trade away his life for a truth that wouldn’t bring him back, and sees nothing but a look of utter betrayal.

Instead of dodging a bullet, it feels more like Steve just made a deal with the devil.


	21. Something In Between

Hours after Pierce left, Brock & Jock in tow, Steve still can’t bring himself to touch brush to canvas. Instead, he sits on his work stool, wearing his nitrile gloves and his lab coat, his safety goggles and his respirator, and stares at the painting in front of him, all nerves. Now that his restoration plan is officially approved, now that nothing stands between him and the painting that’s haunted him since he’d first laid eyes on it, he doesn’t know where to start. The edges are the most obvious answer, but here is Bucky, suffering without his arm, and Steve wants to get right in there with a scalpel and solvent to bring it up from the next layer down.

If he wants to reach that arm, he’d have to remove the entire top layer though, taking it slow, and that would mean scraping this version of Bucky’s face as well. He isn’t exactly sure what to make of the chromograph and the x-rays, which clearly mark the blue of his eyes, but also suggest much darker shadows around his face. Steve thinks it might be a beard. It’s odd that Bucky should be shown with both arms, then missing one, than with both arms again, in that order, but who knows what kind of inspiration had been behind A.Z.’s portrait, or the painters that’d followed A.Z.’s brushstrokes with their own.

Steve considers the border, with all the losses in the paint around the edges where it hugs the stretcher. That would be an easy enough place to start, but it seems so frivolous that he’d work on something like that brick wall, or the empty field, when Bucky is right there, with only one arm. Then he goes back to wondering what might be under that face, and his logic loop starts all over again.

Of course, that’s not the only thing that stops him every time he goes to mix a palette of paint or mask off the areas to start scraping. Luis had declared that there could be such a thing as a soulmate of artwork, but Luis is dramatic and sentimental. Peggy had suggested he was feeling possessive, but Peggy is the sort of ambitious professional that would feel possessive of every single project that crosses her desk. Somewhere in the middle, however, is this connection Steve cannot identify. He looks at _The Winter Soldier_ and he sees a living, breathing work of art, cultural property that has its own source of energy to inspire, to tell a story. When Steve works on this canvas, he’s after so much more than just ‘the truth’, which he always insists is why he loves being an art restorer.

Steve cocks his head sideways, examining Bucky’s expression for the thousandth time. Is it really so bad to just leave him the way he is? Plenty of soldiers return home with missing limbs, to live a full life after the fact. At least in this version, Bucky has yet to step foot on the train that would derail in the mountains and kill him. Who knows what’s going on with that strange version beneath. Yet that is still his job, that’s what this painting is sitting on his easel for.

Steve grits his teeth and reaches for his palette, just when he phone blurts out in warning from his back pocket. Someone’s actually calling him. Steve snaps off his gloves, sweeps his respirator and goggles from his head, and digs in his back pocket. Major Wilson’s caller ID flashes on the screen. “Sam! Hey, what’s up?”

“Yo, Steve,” comes the familiar voice. “I can’t talk long, on duty right now. I wanted to let you know that I made some calls to the Monuments Men Foundation. Now, your boy Bucky wasn’t an official member, he’d been discharged from the military on account of his missing arm. But apparently, he wasn’t done fighting just yet. After Azzano he became a member of this Allied special task force called the Howling Commandos. These were the guys that the Monuments Men sent out into hot zones, areas where the fighting was too thick to move art around, and would clear the way. They were like a hit squad, going after art thieves.”

That’s a lot to take in. “How the hell did he do it with one arm?” Steve says. He wouldn’t think it’d be possible.

“This was a special unit,” Sam explains. “James Barnes had special skills, something about having worked—get this—at the Metropolitan Museum of New York.”

Steve nearly drops his phone. “I- That doesn’t make any sense.” Steve feels like somehow he should have known that if it were true. “If he worked here, maybe I can find some records. This is unbelievable. Unbelievable!” Bucky Barnes has been right under Steve’s nose this whole time. “Thanks Sam. Have I told you I owe you one yet?”

“Oh, I’m shooting over my details as soon as I get off my shift. Look, I got to go. Let me know if you find out more.”

Steve says goodbye, then stares at his phone for a long, long time. Bucky worked here? Steve glances around then, as if Bucky would come sauntering down the hallway any minute. Ridiculous, since this wing had been newly built in the 1970s, but suddenly the whole building feels alive with Bucky’s presence. His laugh and his confident gate, the smell of cigarettes and hair pomade. Steve forces his phone case open, slips out the folded photo paper, then glances up from the picture to the portrait.

“Bucky…” He mumbles, and his heart aches for its other half. He tucks it carefully away, closing the photo up in its secure hiding spot, like a lover’s photo in a locket, then brushes his fingers across the bottom edge of the painting. “What happened to you?”—

—Steve falls forward so suddenly that he throws his hands up to catch himself, only to realize the canvas is no longer in front of him, and neither is the rest of his lab. He inhales deeply to settle a sudden wave of dizziness, the scent of pine and wet grass and cold mud filling his nostrils as he keeps his eyes locked on his own feet. When he straightens back up, he can see plainly that he’s in some sort of forest. “What. The fuck?”

Steve turns around in place, then turns again, seeing nothing at all but trees. He’s not in New York. He’s not even sure he’s in America and it’s raining. “He- hello?” Steve’s voice falls flat onto the ground in front of him, the air held close by the trees and the rain. Steve shivers, freezing already, and pulls his arms into his lab coat to wear it like a poncho. Steve’s breath comes out in a sluggish, white cloud when he calls out again, “Hello!”

The underbrush is thick, nearly as tall as he is in some directions, and curtains of heavy lichen hang from the tall, twisted trees. The forest floor is thick with leaves and fallen branches that squealtch over a muddy ground as he walks. “Hello!” Steve cries out, more desperately now.

His eye catches on an odd looking stump, or maybe a rock, and he stomps through the twigs and fallen leaves towards it. Maybe it’s a sign in the ground, or a marker of some kind, but no, it winds up just being what looks like the fat bottom to an old collapsed pillar. Steve scans the site, and sees a roughly rectangular shape that leads right into an overgrown mound of dirt and rocks and maybe some rough stone. Steve squints, because the stone looks an awful lot like an archway, and maybe… As soon as Steve shoves aside a snarl of branches from some kind of bush, he sees it. A stacked stone arch, worming its way deep into the side of the hill, like an artificial cave.

Steve is cold, wet, and this is the first hint of shelter he’s come across, so he doesn’t think twice before he steps inside. There’s garbage near the front, cloudy shards of glass, bars of metal so rusted they turn to dust under his shoes, and chips of broken pottery. Steve has to use his cellphone’s flashlight before he gets much further, and still the tunnel goes on. Eventually, it comes to a short flight of stairs, and at the bottom is a sculpture of a twisted face, sprouting tentacles and scowling like a skull.

“Fuck…” Steve whispers, and tells himself his shiver is from the cold. There’s a streak of algae forming along a trail of moisture from the creature’s mouth, and Steve stands back when it hits him. “A cistern.”

“I see a light!” Someone cries out, and Steve spins around at the sound. “Over here!”

“Hello!” Steve calls out, overwhelmed with relief. “Thank god. I’m in here!”

“Stay where you are!” The voice screams, and Steve hears a ratchet of metal— A rifle bolt being locked back. “Identify yourself!”

“S-Steve!” Steve shouts back at the faceless voice. “Steve Rogers!”

“My ass!” The man says. “Gotta’ city to go with that name, Fritz?”

_Fritz?_

“Brooklyn,” Steve answers on instinct, before the shock of realization hits—he’s in the _fucking war._ “I’m an American,” Steve miserably admits, and thinks this might actually be the way he dies. If he’s restoring the painting back in his lab, what happens to him if he dies in the past?

“Says he’s from Brooklyn,” the voice says to his companions, and Steve can hear a muffle outside. He puts one hand to his hearing aid, wishing he could just turn up the volume.

“Oh yeah, pal? Funny you should say that,” comes another voice, thickly accented with a Jersey slur. “Where from Brooklyn? I know if you lyin’ to me, since I’m from New York.”

“Since when does _Jersey_ count as New York?” Steve shouts back in disgust, offended enough to momentarily forget his fear.

There’s swearing at the other end, a laugh, and then Jersey admits, “Yeah alright, he’s from Brooklyn.”

“Damn right,” Steve murmurs, and turns off his phone light before he gets to the mouth of the tunnel. He tries not to look surprised at what he finds at the other end, he really does. A group of three soldiers, caked in mud and armed to the teeth mill about outside the cistern’s hidden opening. One wears a trench coat and a surprisingly tidy mustache, and all three are the same muddy color as the dirt, yet somehow twice as filthy. Their helmets are dented, chin straps hanging loose, and none of their gloves have any fingers left.

One of them repositions a strap slung over his shoulder, shrugging a massive radio case more squarely against his broad back, then whispers out loud, “Just a kid...”

“Fellas,” Steve says, lifting his chin in defiance.

“Alright, Brooklyn,” says the soldier in a trench coat, the one who called Steve from the tunnel’s opening. “You got a reason for being out here? Was that you, shoutin’ like an idiot?”

Well, fuck, he hadn’t known he was in a war zone, had he. “Sorry,” Steve murmurs. “I was lost.” Somehow he feels like Peggy would be amazing at this, coming up with excuses on the spot for why she might be somewhere she has no business being.

“Lost. A mile on the wrong side ‘a enemy lines. In a white jacket.” Trench Coat manages to accuse Steve without saying much more than the truth. Steve’s lab coat stands out like a blazing sun.

“It’s for the rain,” Steve says, but fails to muster a sliver of confidence as his tone goes up, making it sound more like a question than an answer. What the fuck is he supposed to say to explain himself? Nothing about him or what he knows makes sense in this time, in this place. Even Bucky thought he was a spy. Steve blinks and bluffs like his life depends on it. “I have information for you. I can’t tell you where I got it from, or who I work for. This cistern, it leads somewhere important.”

Trench Coat shares a look with Jersey and Radio, before Jersey steps forward. Steve’d expected them to laugh in his face, dismiss him out of hand. Maybe being real soldiers, steeped in a real war, made them too cynical to laugh at _anyone_.

Jersey shifts, and Steve tries not to look at the rifle in his hands. “Army Corps of Engineers checked it,” he drawls. “It doesn’t go nowhere.”

“It leads straight up to the castle,” Steve says, pointing vaguely East. “Where the Germans are keeping hundreds of our troops prisoner. The 107th,” Steve adds, sprinkling in just enough detail to fill out his claim.

Trench Coat steps forward as the two men behind him visibly stiffen. “The hell you know that?” He snaps, then stomps forward and snatches the front of Steve’s lab coat in his fist. He moves so fast Steve barely has time to flinch. He clenches as hard as he can to stop himself from crying out in surprise. “The hell are you?”

“I can’t tell you how I know,” Steve says. He can only hope that his heartbeat isn’t hammering against Trench Coat’s curled fingers through his shirt. “But I can prove it.”

“Should we take him to see Colonel Phillips?” Radio asks. “He could be one of ours.”

“This kid? A spy? Give me a break,” Jersey says, rolling his eyes, but he doesn’t shoulder his weapon, still clearly thinking Steve’s a threat. “They’d never take a runt like him.”

“And that’s _exactly_ why they’d take a runt like me,” Steve replies, putting as much ice in his voice as he can muster, and grinning wide enough to make Trench loosen his hold on Steve’s lab coat with an uncomfortable expression. Steve feels genuine confidence when he demands, “Take me to Colonel Phillips. We can save the 107th.”

“Careful who you promise that to, kid,” Trench Coat says, shaking his head. It looks like Steve’s off the hook though, because he’s turned to the others and Jersey finally lowers his weapon. “You’re lookin’ at what’s left of the 107th.”

Steve could have cried. “Did you know James Barnes? Sergeant James Buchanan—”

“Bucky?” Trench Coat says, and Jersey gapes while Radio only frowns. The three share a look before Trench Coat nods. “Guess we better take him to Phillips.”


	22. Azzano, Italy - November 3, 1943 - The War

Steve has never been tied up before. 

When he was a kid everyone played with toy handcuffs or ropes, practicing for the time when they are called upon to escape, just like action heroes in bad movies, but no one ever put any actual effort into the knots. Once the soldiers decide to take Steve to meet this Colonel, he is immediately bound with a length of thick rope. When Steve objects Trench Coat threatens to tie his hands behind his back instead of in front, so he keeps his mouth shut as Jersey makes rough, quick knots around his wrists. 

Steve’s hands start to swell almost immediately, fingers turning bright red from the pressure. After half an hour trudging through the woods, his hands go completely numb, save for the over-sensitive stinging sensation on the very tips of his thumbs.

The forest is so dense and wild he hardly knows how the others can tell where they’re going. Sometimes the invisible path lead by Trench Coat forces them to squeeze through dense trees and scramble up steep slopes. Steve starts to wonder how this can possibly be an actual battleground, supposedly only a mile behind enemy lines, with nothing but the ancient trees and the quiet shush of rainfall around them.

Trench Coat orders them to halt, and Steve stops short, since last time he’d almost walked into Jersey’s backside when he hadn’t noticed their leader’s fist come up quickly enough. One by one, the soldiers carefully step through a line of trees, sight something in the distance, then finally turn back to wave Steve through. That’s when the forest simply disintegrates. One moment he’s surrounded by brush, massive oaks and crackling undergrowth, the next there’s nothing but mud and jagged stumps. Steve blinks in the suddenly too-bright sheen from the open, silver sky. 

“Think we’ll make it back in time to see the girls?” Jersey asks, and Trench Coat shrugs.

“God willing.” 

The conversation is over after that, and they return to their rugged silence. It’s just as well, since after leaving the cover of the forest Steve feels like the group has become uncomfortably exposed as they pick their way across the devastation. Huge, fallen trunks crisscross the ground, cleaned of their branches and acting as a natural break against enemy advancement. They have to skirt around large, round pits, where the earth has been shorn up by something violent enough to snap the skeletal roots of the downed trees. Through the damp and the rotting vegetation, Steve can smell a tinge of something acidic and burnt, and realizes these are craters left by explosives. Mortars? Grenades? If he’s lucky, he’ll never find out.

Once, Steve had joked about how his lab looked like a ‘war zone’ after weeks of back-to-back restorations, when seemingly every brush and palette and solvent and pigment had wound up strewn over every workable surface and parts of the floor. He’ll never use the phrase again for the rest of his life to describe something so goddamn civilian. This isn’t even a city in ruins, there are no crumbled buildings, no burnt out cars, no bodies, yet his gut churns as he walks through the remains of what must have been furious fighting.

The front line is literally a line across the open space, a snarl of barbed wire tumbling along huge iron bars, twisted into X’s. There’s buildings beyond it, but Steve wouldn’t quite call it a town. Narrow one or two storey homes with red tiled rooftops and chimneys misting smoke into the air line the unpaved road. Beyond that, a church with a bell tower marks the tallest structure within sight. This must be Azzano.

Trench Coat, Jersey, and Radio show some papers to the guards at the checkpoint and they get quickly ushered through a gate made out of sawhorses and sand bags. Steve tries to stay silent and small when he’s introduced as an ‘enemy noncombatant’ and the guard looks him over with disinterest before waving them through. He sure could do without the ‘enemy’ part, but at least they’re halfway there in believing that he’s no spy.

Jersey and the Radio finally sling their rifles on their backs as soon as they make it through the gate, and Steve watches all three of them visibly relax. Their steps become heavier, louder, as if they are intentionally being sloppy as they trudge through the muddy street with a purpose. Steve tries to sneak a few sidelong looks at the tiny homes as they walk through town, catching the twitch of a dingy curtain or a child’s wide-eyed stare through the rippled glass panes, but no one is out and about, none of the shops are open, and bullet holes are splattered against every wall, just like the mud and the rain and the— _is that blood?_ Steve drops his eyes to the ground, and tries to tell himself he’s trembling so hard because of the frigid air and his wet clothes. 

This is a much different experience compared to his first two trips back through time. There had been something dreamlike about Brooklyn in the forties, something that still feels distant and feathered along the edges, not sharp and cold and so damn real. Steve also feels like his future life is much clearer this time, his research with Major Wilson, the threat of Pierce reclaiming the painting, the red journal, and the tragic end of Bucky’s short life. Steve has already accepted that he’s here to change things, to give Bucky a fighting chance, but now he has to sort through exactly how he’s supposed to accomplish that tied up and soaking wet and so fucking _small_. 

At least it stopped raining, for the time being.

It doesn’t take long for them to reach the opposite side of the little hamlet, where the buildings end with the small church. Beyond that is a railway platform, not much more than a shed, but just on the other side of the tracks is the United States Army camp. Unlike the line of barbed wire, the camp is surprisingly noisy. A jeep rolls by with a honk and a growl and Steve jumps out of the way, just in time for a splatter of mud to hit him anyway. Jersey laughs and Radio merely keeps walking. Groups of soldiers haul crates and cases of equipment, dig into the innards of battered jeeps, and Steve even catches sight of three men, asleep on a pile of firewood, fully dressed and clutching their rifles to their chests.

At the end of the row is the command tent, marked by its extra wide opening to accommodate all the people moving in and out. Every other tent looks exactly the same, just like the mud, the people and especially the boots, all colored with the same sickly brown and green palette. It’s amazing that the soldiers recognize one another, but Steve supposes that’s what the uniforms are for.

The Colonel is behind a desk, stamping orders and shoving portfolios at harried porters. He barks an order, something about making sure the mess tent is cleared out, and goes back to his typewriter where he yanks out a sheet, signs it, and passes it off to another aid with swift, efficient movements. 

“You gentlemen have a spy for me?” He says, not even turning around, too busy to be entirely bothered by what his scouts dragged in. 

“Yessir,” Trench Coat says. “Found him about a mile over the line. Was hollerin’ for help.” 

“Says he’s from Brooklyn,” Jersey adds, hardly in an effort to be helpful judging by his spiteful tone. “Says he knew Sergeant Barnes, from the 107th.” 

Colonel Phillips turns around, bushy gray eyebrows raised, now only a little more bothered. “Not a very subtle spy.” His comment is directed at Trench Coat, but Steve answers anyway.

“I was looking for the American camp, and here I am,” Steve reasons, and hopes the man won’t shoot him on the spot. Philips is older, with a wide face and tired eyes, but not altogether unkind. Instead he just looks weather beaten, even though his shirt is cleaner than anything else Steve’s come across in this camp, necktie perfectly folded under the crisp lapels. Steve realizes that Phillips is old enough to have served in the first World War, which means he lived through the betrayal of the erroneously labeled _War to End All Wars_. The man looks like he has about a million heavier things weighing down his thoughts, so Steve figures he should get right to the point. “I have information-”

“Let me stop you right there,” Phillips says, holding up his hand. “How do I know you’re with the OSS?” 

Steve doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m not.” Honestly, he doesn’t even know what the ‘OSS’ is, but he’s not a good enough liar to bluff his way past so many years of experience even if he did. “I never said I was.” 

“You said- !” Jersey blurts out, but Phillips holds up his hand again and without another word the soldier behind Steve stops talking. 

“Over a hundred allied troops,” Steve starts again, this time looking Phillips in the eye, because this Steve knows by heart, this doesn’t take any bluffing. “From England, France, and the United States, are being held at the castle to the East, higher up the mountain just over the Austrian border. I have proof that-” 

“We already know about the prisoners,” Phillips interrupts again, and Steve’s mouth drops. That certainly wasn’t in the reports he read. “But we’ve got thirty miles of occupied territory between us and them, no air support, and a supply line to control. Even if we managed to get to the castle undetected, as soon as we launch an assault the countryside will be lit up like a homecoming parade. We’d lose more men than we’d save but I wouldn’t expect you to understand that because you’re either a damn good Krout spy, a damn fool American kid, or both. I’m not risking any of my men on your word.” 

But Steve knows they risk men for the artwork, for the train packed with treasures looted from Rome. It makes Steve heat with anger for the military’s misplaced priorities. Steve can sense the three survivors of the 107th going perfectly still behind him, and suddenly the tent is quiet enough to hear the refreshed rainfall pattering down on the waxed canvas.

“Sir, may I ask. What day is it?” 

“Third of November,” Phillips states, then with a dry sort of humor, continues. “Zero nine hundred hours, if you must know.” 

The escape attempt takes place after nightfall. “I know how to get them back, without risking your men,” Steve says, and wishes he could have done so without being soaking wet and tied up and too cold to push out his narrow chest. “I can prove it.” 

“No offense, son. You don’t even look like you could prove you’re old enough to drive.”

Steve doesn’t rise to the bait, recognizing a brush off when he hears one. This man doesn’t have time for games, and he knows Steve is intimidated, knows he’s out of his depth, but Steve can’t let that assumption stick. Instead he holds the much older, much more experienced man’s gaze and says again, “I can prove it.” 

The Colonel sighs, then waves Steve to continue in silent acquiescence. Steve lifts his bound hands. “Um. I need… Sorry, can you just—”

“For god’s sake, untie the kid already,” Phillips gusts out, leaning back in his chair while Trench Coat yanks the knots loose. He has to work at them for a few minutes since they went hard in the rain, and Phillips impatiently mutters. “Afraid he’d fall down a gopher hole on the way over or what…”

Steve flexes his fingers as the circulation rushes back, stinging and angry. His hands burn when he shoves them into his back pocket and he clenches them hard around his phone to make sure he doesn’t drop it as the sensation painfully returns to each knuckle. He starts by opening his photo app, and swipes through a few documents before he lands on the map he was searching for. 

“They found me at the entrance to an old cistern. It runs for miles underground, all the way up to the castle.” A few more swipes, and the cistern map appears. He zooms in to show the details, and he’s not sure what pastes a curious frown on the Colonel—the information or the phone itself. “The prisoners know about it, they are planning an escape tonight, but they won’t be able to get through the door on their side. It’s sealed up.”

Phillips is silent when Steve steps back, leaving his phone on the desk in front of him, the next steps in the Colonel’s hands. By now, Trench Coat, Jersey and Radio are leaning far over his shoulders to gaze down at the small screen. Steve wonders which one of them will ask him what his phone is first. 

“I’ll be goddamned,” Jersey starts, and Phillips exhales loudly through his nose. 

“Too risky.” 

“Colonel?” Trench Coat blurts out. “This leads right up to their doorstep.”

“Under it,” Steve corrects. “They wouldn’t even know we were there.” 

Colonel Phillips doesn’t even chew on it before he shakes his head. “We have a special detachment headed in that direction,” he explains. “We can’t compromise their operation.” 

Steve nods, figuring as much. “The Monuments Men? They’re too late. Whatever art they’re after is already being moved. They’ll only get there in time to save a handful of men that survive the escape attempt.”

Finally, Colonel Phillips looks genuinely surprised. He locks Steve in the sort of stare that may as well be carved from stone.

“Monuments Men?” Radio mutters darkly, and Philips quickly releases his held breath and leans back ever-so-slightly in his chair. 

“That’s what our boys have been calling them, Jones,” he admits begrudgingly, and flicks at Steve’s phone as if it were an irritating missive that has no business on his desk. “These orders come from the top, kid. Now believe it or not, I still have condolence letters to write out for the rest of the 107th who didn’t make it past this line. Corporal Dugan, get him out of here.” 

“Yes, sir.” The soldier in the trench coat grits his teeth, plucks the phone off his desk, then tosses it to Steve as the Colonel goes back to his papers. 

No! Steve has come so far! What can he say to make this man believe him? That’s not the real question though, Steve realizes, as he’s shuffled out of the command tent. The real question is how could he possibly convince this veteran of too many world wars to disobey orders, to risk a mission, all on the say so of one stranger, so obviously out of his depth? 

The answer is simply that he _can’t,_ so Steve has failed. 

“Dum Dum!” Jersey shouts after Dugan, stomping after him. Steve follows, because he has no idea what else to do with himself. Radio falls into step next to him, as if naturally they are now companions instead of captive and captor, eyes lowered in thought.

Jersey catches up with Dugan—or ‘Dum Dum’ or whatever Trench Coat’s name is—and the two argue back and forth. Apparently, Jersey thinks Dum Dum gave up too easily, and from what Steve can tell of Dugan’s cold answers, he might actually agree with the kid. The orders clearly rankle him, but he’s unwilling to push things any further. Steve wants to interrupt, wants to join forces with Jersey to see if they could win the argument with their combined obstinance, but what could one soldier do? Instead, he plods along, trying to think of his very limited options. 

The camp seems to go on forever, much larger than the actual town, with rows and rows of small tents, stacks of supplies in wooden crates, and everywhere are men shouting and hurrying. A medical tent that stretches all the way along one whole side of it, and when they slosh through the puddles in front of it, Steve can hear moaning and crying, can smell iodine and sickness. He can only hope Bucky won’t wind up there if he does manage to get them out.

Steve wonders how long this camp has been here by now, since they must have only planted stakes in the ground after the 107th was wiped out. The records about the survivors of the Krausberg castle rescue weren’t very explicit when it comes to how long they had been held captive, since so many came from so many countries. It all looks like it’s been melting into the muddy landscape since the dawn of time. 

Dum Dum had refused to tell him more about Bucky or the 107th on their silent march back to Azzano, but maybe now he’ll open up more about what all happened. That’s when piano music clearly picks up in the distance, and the bickering ahead of him suddenly stops between Dum Dum and Jersey. 

Steve glances at Radio—he’s pretty sure Dum Dum called him Jones earlier—then back to the two ahead of them as the music kicks into a cheerful tune. “What is that?”

“Hot damn, we made it just in time,” Dum Dum says. “Come on, fellas. Yes, you too, pipsqueak. At least we got a free pass to see the ladies today instead of scouting those woods.”

“What ladies?” Steve asks, but then they reach a clearing where a massive group of soldiers has gathered despite the fits of rain, dark and tired, but madly cheering a stage draped in faded spangly banners. Steve can’t see over the crowd, the men in front of him jumping and waving, but as soon as the singing starts, he figures it out. A song full of patriotic gumption and cheer ripples out, the music doesn’t have a lot to do with how loudly the men around him whistle and hollar. 

“Can’t see a damn thing!” Dum Dum grumbles loudly, then waves at the rest of them. “Come on. I know a spot.” He forces his way through the crowd, and Steve is luckily caught between him and Jones since the noisy, hard shouldered men surrounding them wouldn’t have parted for Steve alone. The rest of the soldiers are too distracted to care, and soon they’ve broken around the side of a Sherman tank, halfway covered by a tattered tarp. Steve knows it’s a Sherman, because it’s the exact same kind that sits outside of the New York State Military History Museum. Dum Dum hauls himself up the back tread, then reaches down and gives Jersey a hand up. Jersey, in turn, lifts Steve entirely off the ground with one hand and plants him on the tread before the two of them give Jones a hand together. 

From on top of the tank, they get the best view in the house. A line of eight girls, pin-curled hair and bright blue helmets, dance in sync with a mini-piano plunking off to the side. They sing about the love they have for their heroes ‘over there’, about doing their best from the homefront, about the victory that is sure to come. They dance along with the tune, ruffled skirts leaping up as they kick high over their heads and spin in place. Their little red, silver and blue dresses glitter brilliantly in the drizzly weather, shining beacons of color in the middle of the drab parade ground. Dum Dum lets out a ballsy wolf-whistle, and the rest, dirty and tired as they are, cheer and laugh and come alive with the show. 

“Why the long face?” Jersey turns and nudges Steve with an elbow and a grin, and asks, “Bet you wish you had a dame like that back home.”

Steve just shakes his head, because this is distracting and annoying, and it feels like the others have already given up while he’s stuck here, burning with a purpose. He doesn’t know what these men have been through, he doesn’t know what might become of any of them, he only knows that he needs to think of something to rescue Bucky tonight, but he can’t possibly do it on his own. Can he? He has the maps, and all he needs to do is unlock a door. Right? How long can it take to walk thirty miles underground in a lightless, ancient cistern...

Jersey shouts out something so rude it jolts Steve out of his foolish plotting, but then he blinks hard when he suddenly recognizes a familiar face. The girl in the front of the line, the one in the red dress and a blue helmet stamped with a patriotically huge block lettered ‘A’, is Bonbon.


	23. Azzano, Italy - November 3, 1943 - Star Spangled Man With a Plan

The show lasts another thirty minutes. The dancers wave and trot offstage to prepare for their next set to the sound of men bemoaning their departure and begging for more. Steve figures he can just slip away, drop down to the mud and sneak over to the tents behind the stage where the girls and the pianist disappear to. Shouldn’t be impossible to get through, since he’s clearly not one of the soldiers begging for their attention.

“Where do you think you’re off to?” Dugan yanks Steve back by the collar of his wet, muddy lab coat. “Don’t think I can’t keep eyes on our little spy and on a hot set of gams.”

Gross. Steve shrugs out of his grip, and considers lying. “One of the girls is a friend of mine,” he says instead, and Jersey laughs in his face.

“Her name is Bonita, we met at the World Exposition of Tomorrow in Queens,” Steve explains, while Jersey continues to scoff. “The one in the middle with the A on her helmet. We’re friends from back home, with Bucky.” Steve hopes he’s not pushing it by dropping so many references to being American, still hoping they don’t take him for an Axis spy.

Dum Dum seems to consider this for a minute, before he switches gears. “Well, pal. Then maybe you can introduce us?”

What a pig! Steve is about to shout that in the man’s stupid mustached face, but then realizes what Dum Dum is doing. With a wink and a nudge, he’s allowing Steve to meet his friend while keeping an eye on the ‘spy’ and staying in character for the others. Plausible deniability. Clever.

“Yeah, sure,” Steve says with a shrug, and just like that, the four of them are comrades. Jersey’s name, it turns out, is Juniper, but he goes by ‘Junior’ to everyone but Steve. Steve doesn’t think he’s quite ‘there’ yet after that New Jersey crack. They make their way across the rest of the parade ground, trudging over the hard, clumpy mud, and round the makeshift stage where a large tent is set up on wooden boards for a floor. It reminds Steve somewhat of the circus, only you don’t usually have two guards in white painted military police helmets standing by the entrance.

“Smithy!” Dum Dum bellows out, and one of the MPs grins at the greeting. “How in the hell did you get this gig while me and the boys got scouting duty?”

Smithy laughs. “Maybe they knew they had to keep your mustache away from the girls. Too much lice.”

Junior bursts out laughing, but Steve is too shocked to do much than stare as the two men continue to roast each other.

“Really?” Dum Dum says with a grin, unphased by the insult to his grand facial hair. “I figured it was because they gotta get the limp dicks up front. Better safe ‘n sorry. Oh, no offense,” Dum Dum adds to the other MP, who had stayed out of it so far.

Juniper laughs again and so does Smithy and Steve is appalled. Jones gives a sideways grin and offers Steve a conspiratory wink.

“Look, pal, I know this sounds like bullshit, but this kid here is friends with one of the ladies,” he quickly explains. “Old friends from back home. Didn’t know she’d be out here, so he’d like to say hello.”

“Aw, hell,” Smithy sighs. “You know they’re strictly off limits to the fellas.”

“I know, I know,” Dum Dum says, raising his hands defensively. “But look, this little guy? He ain’t a soldier. Just wants to see his friend from back home.”

Smithy seems to consider this, and gives a sideways glance to his companion, who shrugs. “Maybe I can ask. What’s your name, son?”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve says. “I’m here for Bonbon—Bonita. She’s the blonde one, she had the ‘A’ on her helmet. If you tell her I’m here, she’ll want to see me.” Steve is about to leave it at that before he thinks again. It’s been months since the World Exposition of Tomorrow, and it was only one night after all. Quickly, before Smithy turns away, he adds, “Tell her it’s Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century.”

Smithy shrugs, and disappears into the tent.

Dum Dum reaches into one of his coat’s deep pockets and pulls out a little packet of cigarettes. “For your trouble,” he says, offering one to the remaining guard, who finally cracks a smile at the sight of the tiny roll of tobacco.

“Hey, thanks,” he says, then leans in close to take in a light from Dum Dum’s offered match. “Gotta say, I thought this would be a bully posting, but it’s pretty boring,” he says, and exhales a plume of smoke straight up into the air, closing his eyes to relish the experience. Steve thinks this man might be on the older side of the spectrum like Colonel Phillips, another potential survivor of the first war.

“Steve!” Bonbon’s shrill cry startles all of them, and she comes barreling out of the tent wearing a leather jacket over her showgirl dress, golden waves bouncing as she stops short and envelops Steve in a crushing hug. Her bright blue helmet hangs from her arm by the chin strap. “Oh, golly gosh!” She goes on, plants a kiss on his forehead, then both cheeks. She smells amazing. “Steve Rogers, I never would have thought I’d see you again.”

“Bonbon,” Steve murmurs, and pats her back, yielding before her hug squeezes him dry. Dum Dum, Juniper and Jones are staring at them in open shock, Steve’s sure of it. They never expected him to know a show girl well enough to get actual kisses. Honestly, he didn’t expect he made this kind of impression, either. “Good to see you.”

Bonbon pushes him away, and throws her arms out. “Well, it’s a hell of a thing to see you here! What on earth are you doing in the war?” She’s on a tear now, talking with her hands as she scolds him. “Thought you weren’t gonna’ stay in Brooklyn. Leave the fightin’ to knuckleheads like Bucky.”

“Bonbon.” Steve shakes his head, trying not to look too grim. “We need to talk.”

With the lady’s blessing, Steve and his three chaperones are allowed into the USO tour camp, which is a whole other world compared to the muddy hole on the other side of the stage. Here, the grass hasn’t been trampled into muck after weeks of stomping boots and grinding tank treads, the tents are larger, cleaner, with wooden structures underneath that makes them more like little canvas cabins than the grim hovels the soldiers sleep in. It even teems with a full regiment of smartly dressed staff, pressed uniforms emblazoned with the USO Camp Show insignia, who rush about preparing for the next set for the troops out front.

Taking in the luxury around him, Juniper’s eyes are even wider than they had been when they were watching the girls kick up their heels from the top of the Sherman. A group of the Star Spangled Singers wave hello to Bonbon as they cross paths, ruby sequins winking on their frilled skirts, and he does a double take, like he can’t decide which to gape at more. Dum Dum goes uncharacteristically quiet, gripping his helmet in both hands as if he just stepped into church, and nods a polite hello to the ladies.

Bonbon leads them to a long tent with an open face and a wood floor, where long tables are set up for something like a mess hall. “Alright,” she says, landing on one of the low benches, then drops her helmet to the tabletop. “I got an hour between sets. You going to tell me how you managed to follow Bucky over here after all? Thought you were going to stay home with us.” She’s scolding him, but only softly.

Where does Steve even start? What exactly does he expect from Bonbon? She wouldn’t know anything about the journal or Hydra or Krausberg. All Steve knows is that each time he’s been brought to the past, he’s been dropped right on Bucky’s doorstep. Whatever rules govern his mission have made it clear it isn’t a coincidence, so neither is Bonbon being in Italy—thousands of miles from home—the exact time he winds up showing up to camp. Still, it’s not easy to talk about what he knows, or how he knows it.

“Bucky is…”

“He’s dead,” Dum Dum grumbles and Steve misses Bonbon’s reaction because he snaps his head around.

“You don’t know that!” Jones blurts out, the most animated Steve’s seen him yet.

“Come on, Gabe…” Juniper says, and kicks the toe of his boot into a particularly stubborn clump of grass. He doesn’t sit with the rest of them, like he’s happy standing just outside of the clean mess tent. “We saw that assault on the ridge… No way he coulda made it.”

“He made it,” Steve insists, first to Bonbon, then to Dum Dum. “He made it, and he’s being held along with over a hundred other prisoners in Krausberg. The Colonel admitted that much was true.”

“Damn it, kid!” Dum Dum slams his fist on the table, making Steve jump and Bonbon levels a cold stare his way. “Colonel ain’t going to deploy the Army to go marchin’ into Austria through some Roman toilet!”

“Cistern,” Steve corrects with a hiss. “And I’m twenty- _seven_.”

“No shit?” Juniper blurts out, and now Steve knows for a fact he’s probably about nineteen years old, tops.

“These Monuments Men,” Jones says, cutting right through the drama. “You said they were after art?”

“I know them!” Bonbon chimes in. “My dad told me all about ‘em. Trying to chase down the Nazi’s looted masterpieces. One of the Met’s curators was drafted into it, my father’s friend.”

Steve nods. That sounds about right. “An international task force of academics, museum folks, artists. Hitler looted all the major museums in Europe, so someone has to be able to recognize a Cezanne from a Picasso and help us get them back.”

“Academics, museum folks, artists...” Dum Dum repeats the words suspiciously, like Steve had just listed off the foul denizens of a seedy cantina. “No soldiers.”

That’s hardly fair, the Monuments Men will sacrifice just as much as any Army unit in the war, but Steve knows that’s not a conversation Dugan is ready to have as the man sullenly strokes his mustache with his thumb.

Jones seems to have chewed on that for a little while before he speaks again. “So these Monuments Men are trying to rescue some art stash at Krausberg? And they don’t know about the prisoners.”

“Right,” Steve says. “The prisoners also don’t know about the Monuments Men. They are going to attempt to escape tonight into the cistern, only it’s locked on their end. They all wind up piling up near the door. The only reason any of them survive is because the Monuments Men show up chasing a Nazi trainload of art.”

Steve doesn’t want the conversation to lapse there, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “Oh,” he suddenly thinks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask. Where’s Connie?”

Bonbon’s smile is quick and sad and gone in a flash. “She twisted her ankle in London. First leg of the tour! I wasn’t going to stay on, but Connie… you know she was a real believer in what we’re doing. Honestly, I didn’t believe it til’... well, til’ I got here.”

“Your parents were maybe onto something about that home country stuff?” Steve suggests and Bonbon blows a raspberry between her very red lips.

“Oh pooh, Stevie. Don’t go saying, ‘I told you so.’” She laughs, kicks her heels up and stretches her arms out in front of herself with a relaxed sigh. She’s still wearing her spangly dress under her jacket, but doesn’t seem all that formal without her helmet and her silver dance shoes. She wears combat boots for the mud, like everyone else walking around the camp. “Though I guess you said you’d follow Bucky here, if you coulda’, so maybe you were onto something.”

“Starting to feel like I’m certainly not making a damn bit of difference,” Steve admits, and feels his phone burning in his back pocket, full of all the information they need to mount a spectacular rescue, though without any resources to actually pull it off. “I should have known this wouldn’t have been enough.”

“Did you see the way those fellas came alive when we were dancin’?” Bonbon says. “No one can tell me that ain’t worth a couple weeks in the rain, without Connie here. So she was right, as always. I may not be any kinda soldier, but I sure do think we make a difference.”

“You sure do, ma’am,” Dum Dum nods, still holding his helmet in both hands, and Steve is relieved that at least there’s a gentleman in there somewhere.

“If the Monuments Men come to Krausberg at the same time as a breakout,” Jones starts. “Then the Nazis would be distracted with defense of their strategic fortifications and moving that art somewhere else, right?”

Steve blinks, and immediately picks up on what Jones is coming around to. “They wouldn’t notice the prisoners slipping away.”

“Or have the manpower to make that much difference,” Juniper adds catching on. “If those men were stopped by a locked door, let’s lock it back up once they sneak out. Nazis won’t follow us all the way to Azzano.”

“All well and good,” Dum Dum says. “But that’d mean going against orders. AWOL. That kinda thing could get us the firing squad.”

“Not if we have all our boys with us,” Jones reasons.

“Our boys also might know where this stolen art is headed off to,” Steve adds, because he knows the prisoners were the ones who were forced to load the art on the train in the first place.

The conversation drops to a dead stop, as all four of them realize the decision’s already been made.

Out of all of them, Bonbon is the one with the courage to say it out loud. “Well, I gotta go prep for my next set!” She takes one look at Steve before she clicks her tongue with disapproval. “Stevie, honey, didn’t your ma’ ever teach you not to leave the house without a proper coat?” She shrugs out of her leather jacket, and tosses it to him. “This is the last part of my tour so you could use it more than me,” she adds with a shrug of her bare shoulder, setting the sequins to glittering. Then she drops the helmet in his lap. “It’s a real helmet,” she says, when he gives her an accusatory look. “Too heavy for us girls to dance in, if you ask me,” she adds, cupping the ends of her curly blond locks, as if she needed to give them some extra bounce. Finally, she fixes him with a level look, as if it’s all up to him. “Go make a difference. Bring our boy back.”

“Miss,” Dum Dum manages weakly. “We know he’s your pal too, but no promises the Sarge is still alive. We were there when the unit got overtaken… Chances are he-”

“If Steve says he’s alive,” Bonbon says, cutting him off. “Then I trust him. He’s from the future after all.” She adds the last bit with a wink, gives Steve’s shoulder a squeeze. She trots off in her heavy boots, headed to the backstage area where more of the Star Spangled Singers are starting to gather.

Steve holds the gifts in his hands for only a fraction of a second, then shrugs out of his lab coat and gets into the leather jacket. Bonbon’s body heat kept the lining warm, so he happily zips it up and leaves his useless, soaking wet lab coat on the table, knowing it’ll be stranded there forever.

“Don’t try and stop me,” Steve says, making his way to the USO camp’s main entrance.

Dum Dum, Juniper and Jones follow on his heels regardless, and Dum Dum is the one that sighs and reminds him he doesn’t exactly have a choice. “Okay, but you realize when you say that you sort of look like a disobedient cupcake?”

Steve doesn’t answer, because he knows this is nuts, he knows he’s a fool to play soldier in a real war, trying to make a difference in a showgirl’s painted helmet, but everything in his body is telling him this is what he’s here to do.

They make their way back around the parade ground, still crowded by soldiers enjoying the evening entertainment. Bonbon’s jacket is warm, but the helmet is heavy, and he gets more than a few odd looks by the time he stomps past the Sherman tank. Luckily, most of the other soldiers are already cheering as the piano music kicks off, knowing that soon they get to see the pretty, made up faces that remind them of home.

* * *

Bonbon gives Steve her helmet, to help him find Bucky. She has a lot of faith in him! By [Samthebirdbae](https://samthebirdbae.tumblr.com/post/179050354008/steve-and-bonnie-from-the-restoration-artist-by)! 

 


	24. Azzano, Italy - November 3, 1943 - The Cistern

“Cisterns were dug by the Romans as early as they had aqueducts, but this looks almost Byzantine in comparison with most of what they had from the Western Roman Empire…” Steve runs his fingers over the sunken pits that make up the skull’s eyes as he talks, voice falling flat against the stone walls. “It would make sense, but not stretching this far into Italy. It probably is being ground fed by the mountains-” 

“You don’t say,” Jones says for the third or fourth time, not really listening as he works on the equipment at Steve’s feet. It doesn’t really matter, since Steve just likes to order his thoughts out loud.

Steve considers the carving again, the intricate lines in the age-stained limestone, curling tentacles around that hideous skull, the saturated green streak of moisture weeping from it’s broken mouth. Steve knows Jones is distracted, so he takes a snapshot with his phone before he quickly tucks it away and goes back to inspecting the edges of the sculpture.

“...Must have taken months to carve this from scratch. Maybe even years.” 

Jones finishes up whatever it was he was working on, grabs Steve by his collar and practically drags him out of the long tunnel, back to where Juniper and Dum Dum are waiting in the forest. Steve isn’t really sure what the rush is, but once the other soldiers had decided to believe him he’s figured out that it’s best to follow their lead. They’re the ones that emptied out some supply chests before making the one mile hike past the line, loading up on water, rations, med-kits, rope and other supplies for the long, subterranean march.

“How’d it go?” Dum Dum asks Jones, but Steve is too distracted by what he saw and answers first and doesn’t notice the others step aside.

“I think there must be some kind of way we could leverage the end-cap out of place with that crowbar you grabbed,” Steve is thinking that if he can, he’ll have it replaced behind them with the sculpture facing inside, just in case future generations discover this cistern again and study it. It must be the longest stretch of man-made underground waterways in the ancient world. “We’d have to damage that fantastic Roman fret design on the border—”

Dum Dum reaches over, grabs Steve by the flaps of Bonbon’s leather jacket, and throws him to the side of the entryway so fast Steve barely has a chance to cry out when a great _boom!_ jolts into his gut. Steve grabs onto his helmet as a giant burst of stone chips and dust coughs out of the passageway. 

After a few minutes of silent waiting, not just for the literal dust to settle but also for any raid sirens to go up from the direction of the Allied camp, Steve dives in. The twenty-foot passage now opens up into a yawning cavern, fifteen-foot arched ceilings overhead reflected in the black, glassy surface of stagnant water. The moisture coating the stone walls had been caused by the broken ceiling overhead, where sunlight lances into the inky darkness along with seeping rain water. Steve kicks over a chunk of rubble to find a piece of the intricate sculpture’s broken eye socket and reminds himself that’s not what they’re here for anyway. 

Jones pats him on the shoulder, following his gaze down to the destroyed antiquity. “If it’s any consolation, it took me ten minutes to make a door from scratch. Eleven, tops.” 

“Very funny,” Steve grumbles, and pulls out his cellphone. It’s not as pitch dark as he thought it’d be, which is lucky since his phone battery might last him a few hours with the flashlight on, not the full day’s march it’ll take for them to reach Krausberg. Dum Dum lights their lantern anyway, while Juniper looks over Steve’s shoulder as he uses his tiny map to show their approximate route.

“Going under the mountain, should take about seven hours,” Jones figures. “Put us there just after eighteen hundred hours, give or take a detour or two.”

That’s six o’clock in the evening, Steve translates for himself. Hours before the escape supposedly starts. Realistically, the prisoners have all been working towards this day for weeks, planning around the guards’ shifts and gambling on the belief that the ancient cistern door won’t have the strength of modern locks keeping it in place. They have no way of knowing that the old, fragile exterior door from the castles’ medieval period will only bring them into an antechamber with a secondary door to the cistern proper, which will be just as sealed up as the one Jones blew up with TNT.

Better not waste any time. Steve thinks of Bucky, not of Steve’s actual memories of him smiling, laughing over an empty plate of pancakes, but of the painting in the lab, missing an arm and any sense of hope. He walks past Dum Dum’s lantern light, leading the way into the darker areas of the tunnel, shallow water traveling away from each step in wide, rippling breaks. “Well. Let’s get started.”

They talk for the first few hours of the march, then are forced to climb where an ancient spillway connects to the main tunnel, and don’t pick the conversation back up. They even eat their meager lunch in relative silence, disgusting dried eggs and ham in a tin that Steve learns is called a K-ration, then break to eat a second time and still aren’t even two-thirds of the way there. The ceiling is broken in some areas, tree roots and piles of dead leaves prying open the top of the cistern to let in slivers of light here and there. Other areas, like the spillway, are wholly enveloped in darkness, keeping them close to the circle of Dum Dum’s lantern light. Water sloshes at their every step, sometimes no more than a slimy film on the cistern floor, sometimes up to Steve’s knees as the group wades carefully over broken stone. 

They periodically check Steve’s map to get their bearings, especially after taking a wrong turn and running up against a dead end that takes them about an hour off course. It’s unsettling how easy it is to become disoriented underground, even as Steve uses a sliver of the limestone door to mark arrows on the walls just in case his phone is dead by the time they head back. Something about the intermittent light from above, the constant swishing water, the air that closes in tight around them, seems to naturally tug them in all the wrong directions, luring them gently away from their target into sleepy little burrows that lead to three inch drains somehow swirling with water, or the bottoms of long abandoned wells. 

Eventually, Steve starts to feel like he might actually be sleepwalking, the sound and the darkness and the swaying gold circle reflecting off the water in the same pattern as hours and hours roll by. He’s not exactly in any kind of shape to speak of, and even if he likes to jog on the weekends, this isn’t something he’s really built for. His hips ache, his toes have gone numb, and his chest is tight, waiting on the edge of an asthma attack if he pushes it any further. To think they still have to make the march all the way _back…_

“This should be it,” Jones suddenly says, stopping short to check his compass. “Rogers, let’s see the map box.” 

‘Map box’ is what they wound up calling his cellphone, which they surprisingly didn’t have many more questions about. He takes it out of his zippered front pocket, where he’s stashed it ever since Juniper fell into water up to his waist after stepping into a pothole, and calls up the cistern schematic. Jones rotates the image expertly with two fingers, then points down a tunnel that branches off the main passage.

“You sure?” Dum Dum says, raising his lantern high overhead. The tunnel is made of a different colored stone, which isn’t all that unusual. They’ve already seen plenty of variation, most likely from the different eras of construction when the cistern had been modified and expanded. High overhead, clinging to the keystone in the tunnel’s arch like a spider is another carved antiquity. Most of its tentacles are eroded by water seepage, leaving only the grinning skull behind. Jones nods.

“You first.” Junior deadpans. Steve pushes past him and into the tunnel. 

It doesn’t take long before it widens into a more recognizable waterway, which must have been built closer to the Renaissance era given the smooth stone of the walls and surviving wooden supports. Iron grates are set in narrow, round drains that haven’t yet gone to dust from the passage of time, along with rusted downspouts and glistening streaks of white salt where the minerals have gathered over time. At the end is a short platform set above a circular drain, a stone staircase leading up from it to an ancient block of stone set like a doorway high in the wall. Steve would bet money that spooky skull motif is on the other side.

They climb onto the platform, which must have acted as a landing when the cistern was actually full of water, and Jones is first up the stairs. “Time to make another door,” Jones mutters, and swings off his backpack. 

“Wait, wait,” Steve says, and takes a step back. “If there’s guards on the other side of this thing we’ll bring the whole castle down here.” 

Dum Dum clicks his tongue. “Now he tells us.” 

Steve hops down the stairs and takes another look at one of the drains, a circle about twenty inches wide and covered by a few rusty bars. From inside, he can see it slopes gradually up, in a straight line. He can see light flickering weakly on the other end of it, about level with the top of the stairs. Steve stands back and tells them his plan. “I think I can fit in here. I can give the all clear from the top.” 

The rusted bars come apart with a few swift kicks. It’s narrow, but so is Steve and he ducks his head in first to see how tight it is. His bright blue helmet scrapes along the stone so he pulls his head out of the drain and unclips the chin strap. 

“Look, you don’t have to prove anything, kid,” Dum Dum says, from his position near the foot of the stairs. “No tellin’ what we’d do if you got yourself stuck in there.” 

“I won’t,” Steve says. “Besides, I marked the tunnels on the way here. If I get stuck, you and the prisoners will be fine.” 

“I meant what we’d do to get you _out_ ,” Dum Dum huffs, but Steve is already wriggling into the drain. 

It’s tight, but not impossible. The stone is smooth from years of runoff washing over the bricks, and whatever moisture still finds its way down into the cistern apparently feeds a healthy amount of slimy mold that scrapes away as Steve forces himself up and up and up. The drain itself grows tighter, and Steve regrets wearing his jacket as the metal buckle of the belt grinds against the damp stone. The climb gets harder, and Steve tries not to think about how he can’t quite seem to catch his breath because the walls of the drain press in around all sides of his chest, unyielding. 

Only a few more feet, and Steve’s fingers brush against the grate on the other side, but before his smile goes too wide, a boot stomps right across it. He bites his tongue to cut off an expletive, and tucks his chin in when dirt clatters through on top of him. A man shouts in German before that boot moves on and Steve listens holding his breath as angry steps march away. A heavy door slams hard enough to make Steve’s teeth hurt, and he releases his breath slowly. That was a real life _Nazi_. 

Steve remains there, still as possible, wedged in the drain pipe for another five whole minutes as his heart rate levels out. It’s painful but every shuffle, every drip, every far off scrape sends a chill through him that he’s about to be caught. All anyone has to do is look down, and they’d see his sweaty face peering up. Finally, Steve dares to stick his hand out and gives a nudge to the grille covering the drain. It doesn’t budge at first, so he wriggles forward, braces himself against the slimy walls, and pushes again. This time, it lifts free from the stone and he forces it aside as he struggles up. 

“Come on Rogers, you got this…” 

Now that he’s so close to freedom, the pipe itself seems to clench around him, as if the stone wants to swallow him back down. Suddenly, the enclosed space becomes intolerable, claustrophobia taking hold, and Steve is on the verge of panic before he finally forces himself out like a squiggle of toothpaste. All Steve wants to do is lay spread eagle across the floor, catch his breath, and never look down another drain for as long as he lives, but he forces himself to his feet and flattens against the nearest wall. 

He’s in some kind of wide chamber—about a hundred feet by seventy—broken up by a march of columns leading to vaulted ceilings, obviously underground. Naked bulbs hastily hammered into the pale stone overhead buzz and flicker, and he hears a persistent trickle of water somewhere in the darkened corners. The floor is crammed with piles of filthy clothes and shoes, all rotting away and stinking like a subway stop after a heatwave. There’s a lopsided stone stairway at one of the chamber, a heavy wooden door banded with iron at the top, probably the one that guard walked through earlier. Behind Steve is a much older wooden door, rotted near the floor from years of water damage, and set in a wall made from rough stone the same size and color as the chamber in the cistern below.

The whole place looks a little bit like a dungeon, but where are all the prisoners? 

He returns to the drain, surprised to see how absolutely tiny it is on this end. He takes a breath to shake off the immediate panic that trickles down his spine, and calls down to the others. “I’m through. No one is here yet. Don’t blow the door until I find the prisoners. The explosion might get the wrong kind of attention.”

Steve trots up the stairs to the heavy door, presses his ear against the wood, and hears nothing on the other side. Now that he’s sure he’s alone, he does a quick survey of the dungeon and quickly locates the telltale trickle of water, running from an open drain in the ceiling and pooling more or less towards another smaller drain in the stone floor. Water probably rushes through this whole chamber when it storms, which is why everything is damp and moldering in the corners. There’s a lot of military equipment, backpacks, shovels, helmets, but Steve comes across mostly civilian belongings, heavy jackets and even a few quilts. None of it is sorted, just left in random heaps, like it had all been abandoned by its owners where they stood. There are no other doors or windows. Do they really just use this room to stash this junk? 

Steve heads back up the stairs, stepping carefully on the smooth stone with his wet boots, then waits a few beats at the door before he dares to try the heavy iron ring. The door opens easily, the bolt left open, the hinges giving the slightest groan. On the other side is another stone staircase, this one circling up in such a tight coil that people going up it must have to go one at a time. Steve climbs quickly, figuring the less time he spends in such a confined space the better, and stops on the first landing where he finds a narrow, arched door. This one has a tiny square window, banded with rusty iron bars, but it’s too dark for him to make out anything on the other side. It doesn’t budge an inch when Steve tugs on the handle.

“Fuck…” 

Steve has no idea where to go. 


	25. Krausberg, Austria - November 3, 1943 - The Escape

How exactly is he supposed to find Bucky? 

Stumbling across over one hundred fifty captive soldiers should be a hell of a lot easier than this, but Steve had clearly underestimated the size of this castle. Not to mention how terrified he would be to explore it, now that he knows actual Nazis freely roam around the place. He settles on going up another level, then another and another, finding identical narrow doors at each one. All of them are locked from the other side, and just as he’s starting to think he’s out of luck, one of the doors pops open. Steve finds himself at the end of a hallway, one side lined with doors, the other with tall windows. Finally Steve can see sky. It’s dark outside, but the stars are visible next to a gorgeous full moon, lighting up the side of a mountain capped with snow.

There’s an open staircase at the end of this hall, much wider than the narrow climb he just came from, which must have been a servant’s stair or some other utility access. He crosses the hall, ignoring the doors at first, then stops short when the moonlight bounces off something inside one of the rooms that catches Steve’s attention. He’s almost capable of dragging himself away, reminding himself that his priority is to find Bucky and the others, but his curiosity gets the better of him.

Steve takes a few steps backwards and peers inside the dark room, catching the scent of turpentine and linseed oil. The huge windows behind him face North, so the light would be perfect coming in through this door. It’s almost like Steve’s own lab, a workbench pushed off to one side, tidy rows of brushes and pigments on the shelf above it. Vertical stacks line the opposite wall, dozens of canvases slotted between the wooden dividers. In the middle of the room is a large easel, a current work draped in a white sheet that practically glows blue in the moonlight.

That alone shouldn’t have struck Steve as something worth stopping for, but by now he is so intimately familiar with these exact dimensions that he already knows what’s under the sheet before he pulls it down. _The Winter Soldier_ sits alone on the easel, visible even in the dim light. Only, this isn’t the exact same painting Steve knows. He dares to pull out his phone, taps on the light and takes a closer look. In it, Bucky is in almost the same position Steve’s seen before. 

Bucky leans forward in front of a brick wall, a bicycle behind him, panniers bulging with packages, the black star peeking out of the journal’s red cover. Even though that much is the same, the tone of the painting is wholly different from before. Instead of his uniform, Bucky now wears nothing but a tattered olive drab shirt with a torn collar and missing buttons. His pants aren’t in much better shape, hanging off him like they’re four sizes too large. His hair is hanging in his eyes, which are framed with cuts and scars he didn’t have even in the version with the horrible injury to his left arm. He still has the cigarette attached to his lip, but rather than a jaunty smile, looks out of the canvas with a sneer. Those bright blue eyes are narrowed in a hateful scowl, and his hands are crammed in his pockets like he’d reach right into hell if it would only give him a weapon.

There’s an immediate and desperate need that yanks Steve’s hand forward, but he stops himself mid-reach, without touching the painting. He wants it, yearns to touch the paint, still wet on the canvas, the colors not yet dulled by time or built up grime, and no hint of craquelure creeping across its unblemished surface. The painting itself is just as raw as Bucky’s anger in it, and Steve feels an overwhelming need to soothe it away.

 _Stupid_ , Steve thinks sharply at himself. If he takes it now, it won’t exist for him to discover in the future, and who knows what that would mean for his time traveling. Even touching it could ruin whatever bond he’s made with the canvas.

Instead, Steve takes a photo of it, then leaves the painting behind.

Steve is halfway down the stairs to the next landing when a great _boom!_ shakes the castle walls. He leaps up a few steps as if being higher up would save him if the stones started falling down around his ears, then is stricken with the panicked thought that Dum Dum and the others got too anxious waiting for him and blew the doors already. An alarm starts wailing outside, lights flare through the high windows in the stairwell, and the _rat-tat-tat_ of machine gun fire rattles away, so loud he could feel it under his hands where they’re pressed against the stairwell’s walls. Steve listens for a good while until he’s sure all the action is actually happening outside, and realizes the castle must be under attack. 

Had the Monuments Men arrived already? Steve wouldn’t have thought they were a large enough force to siege a stronghold like this, but the records he found about the Krausberg assault were vague, and mostly focused on the tragic loss of the prisoners discovered here after the fact. Steve takes his chances with the stairwell, heading down a few more levels, before the sound of stomping boots and shouting men stops him in his tracks. Each landing has a small nook, tucked behind the underside of the stairs from the level above, set with a decorative arch. Steve flings himself inside of it before the voices reach him, squeezing in behind a sculpted cherub that clenches the ring of a cast iron light fixture in a chubby hand, then holds his breath. With any luck, whomever is heading up these stairs will stomp right past him and continue on their way. 

The group gets closer, a whole long line of them, whispering in hushed tones as the fighting outside continues, explosions popping like fireworks, complete with the whiz _-bang!_ of delayed fuses. The first group of them pass by, and Steve’s hiding place goes undiscovered as more and more filter up the stairs, their steps heavy and dragging even as their hurried whispers urge each other on. That’s when it hits him that he can actually understand them because he’s listening to whispered French and English instead of German. He peeks out from around the gaudy sculpture, and watches thin, filthy men filtering past. The prisoners are headed upstairs.

“Hey,” Steve blurts out in a harsh whisper, and the handful of prisoners closest to him leap away, some with fists raised, others with a shout of surprise. Steve’s hands shoot up into the air, because even though he hasn’t spotted any weapons he doesn’t want to get punched either. “Whoa! I’m here to help!”

One man, wearing a red beret, speaks in rapid French to a colleague before turning back to Steve and asks in a thick British accent, “So who in the blue blazes are you supposed to be?”

“Um,” Steve isn’t sure how he should introduce himself. It’s not like he’s actually with the military. “Steve Rogers. I came to get you guys out.”

“Bang up job you’re doing,” Red beret tells him with an unhelpful sneer. “Look, mate, if you want to help us out, get us to this damn dungeon our yank friends told us about. I thought he was having a laugh sending us upstairs to get to a lower level and now I’m almost sure he’s going to get us killed…” 

“Well,” Steve says. “Believe it or not, that I can do.”

Red Beret’s name turns out to be Major James Montgomery Falsworth, a member of His Majesty's 3rd Independent Parachute Brigade of the British Armed Forces, _thank you very kindly._ The guy at his side is a French resistance fighter named Jacques, who doesn’t speak a word of English, but apparently makes a ‘hell of a sticky bomb,’ whatever that means. They take him to the front of the group, which has steadily made its way upstairs and admit to being hopelessly lost. Steve is happy enough to give the directions to everyone along the way—seven flights up, across a hallway lined with North-facing windows, then through the door at the end. It won’t be locked, and the spiral staircase will be narrow and dark.

“We have to move faster,” Steve urges, and luckily Falsworth is there to translate in military terms to the group, which consists of a lot of swearing and a few slaps on the back. Once Steve told the British officer that he has members of the 107th waiting in the cisterns, he dropped his snark, pushed the shuffling line of prisoners to pick up the pace, and listen to what ‘the lad’ has to say. 

“There’s about a hundred-sixty of us, all told,” he explains quickly, breathing heavily as they hike up the stairs. “French, English, plenty of Americans. I think I saw a Hungarian or two but honestly, I never know what those lads are up to.” 

“Why are the Nazis keeping you here?” Steve asks, still keeping track of how many landings they’ve passed as they climb up and up.

“We’re digging out a salt mine,” Falsworth explains, snark coming right back into his tone as if he’s insulted to be wasted on such menial labor. “Some kind of storage facility, given how many shelves they keep moving in. It feels like they honestly just have us digging for the sake of digging.”

Steve knows exactly what the Nazis had been planning on putting in the salt mine, but keeps that thought to himself. It’d been one of the more famous discoveries of the Monuments Men, when they’d uncovered priceless artifacts hidden in hundreds of locations, the largest by far had been a salt mine right here in Austria. Probably not the same one, since Steve also knows the Nazis are already moving the art away from this location by train.

“Are you with the 107th then? Army lad?” 

“No,” Steve answers truthfully. He’s not sure why it is, but being mistaken for a soldier isn’t something that he feels will do him any favors in the long run. “I just brought them intelligence and the 107th were the only guys willing to come with me.”

Falsworth’s eyebrows go up in surprise. “Have to go AWOL, did you?” 

“Something like that.” Steve doesn’t want to get into it now, expecting that plenty of politics had been involved. “They knew it was the right thing to do.” 

“Not surprising, since they’ve got that Sergeant Barnes as their leader.” 

That brings Steve up short. “Bucky? You know him? Where is he? I didn’t see him.” 

“You wouldn’t have I reckon,” Falsworth says, not breaking stride. “He went back to help the few wounded men at the end of the line. If they can’t make it up the stairs, then we’d have to leave them behind. Barnes wouldn’t stand for it. They weren’t even Americans. A bunch of civilian Austrians that wound up stuck here with us for whatever reason.” 

Steve falls silent weighing his options. The troop of prisoners is only loosely collected, most not familiar with this area of the castle, and hardly sure where they’re headed. Getting lost was probably one of the reasons they’d wound up trapped, alerting the Nazis of the escape by banging on the wrong doors. Steve doesn’t want to leave the front of the column to head all the way back down to wherever the stragglers are, since he seems to be the only one near the front that knows exactly where they need to go. A few prisoners had already argued that they should be turning around, still confused by the idea of climbing stairs in order to get to an underground chamber, but Steve knows they still have two more levels to go before they can cross that hallway with the art studio. 

As much as he hates it, Steve stays with Falsworth near the front, keeping them on course as the castle continues to tremble in response to artillery fire from outside. When they reach the top floor, Steve is met with a blast of cold wind. Those beautiful tall windows all along one side of the hall have shattered, glittering in the moonlight along with freshly fallen snow. Steve crunches across the floor first, ignoring the studio’s open door this time, and waves the others across after taking a look inside the service stairwell at the opposite end. It feels like it takes ten times longer to step down, floor after floor, turn after turn, with a group of over a hundred men behind him. By the time Steve reaches the door to the dungeon, still unlocked where he’s left it slightly ajar, he figures there are still men climbing up the stairs on the opposite side of the building.

The dungeon is just as dark as it was before, weak bulbs still glowing orange overhead, and Steve quickly hops down the stairs with Falsworth and Dernier on his heels and stops at the tiny drain he crawled through. 

“Dum Dum! Are you guys still there?” 

“Kid!” Dum Dum’s voice comes back immediately. “We thought you mighta got yourself killed up there. What’s going on? Did you find our guys?” 

“They found me,” Steve admits, then nearly swallows his tongue when a shout comes out from around one of the pillars.

“ _Wer sind Sie?_ ” A man demands, stomping towards him, and Steve freezes. “ _Was machen Sie hier?_ ” 

“Oi! About time one of you lot showed up!” Falsworth blurts out, stomping right past Steve towards the German officer. The Nazi looks like something out of a movie, clad in an all black uniform, tall, shiny boots, and a peaked hat emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. Steve stares at the swastika on his armband as Falsworth casually approaches the SS officer, ignoring how the man’s hand hovers over the leather holster on his hip. “We were told to head down here when the fighting started, but no one came with us! Are we in the right dungeon?” 

Steve feels like he should be able to do something, _anything_ other than stay crouched by the drain, but shock pins him to the spot and he can’t move a muscle. Is he really such a coward? So useless in a fight that he freezes like a deer in headlights? The SS officer clearly isn’t buying Falsworth’s spiel, and the longer the British officer goes on, the more men stumble into the cavernous dungeon. Steve should do something, should tell Dum Dum to blow the doors, create a distraction. How many bullets does that side arm have? Six? Six people here, potentially gunned down, all because Steve has panicked and failed.

That’s about when he notices Dernier, making his way around another pillar as Falsworth continues distracting the SS officer. The officer tucks his hand under the flap of his holster and Steve drops the grille for the drain with a clang! The officer is startled enough to turn away from Falsworth, who uses the opening to shove him backward, and Dernier is behind him in an instant. 

Steve claps a hand over his mouth when he sees blood, a great big shower of it, stream out of the officer’s opened throat, and Dernier drops the body like a sack of potatoes to the floor. 

“You killed him,” Steve breathes out finally, as his joints unlock. The officer’s body gives a feeble twitch, and a gaseous hiss leaves the hole in his throat, bubbling through the blood that keeps draining out, soaking a nearby pile of tattered shirts.

“I hope so,” Falsworth says and Steve is stuck trying to understand what he feels. That wasn’t just a Nazi, that was an SS officer, probably the reason why this dungeon is filled with the evidence of many ruined lives. They are all anti-semites, monsters, and yet Steve can’t help but feel sick with something resembling empathy for the way the man had clawed at the gaping wound in his throat and collapsed. It’d seemed so painful, so unnatural, though Steve isn’t sure what someone being killed _should_ look like. 

“Kid! Everything okay up there?” Comes Dum Dum’s voice. The others likely heard the exchange, keeping quiet until the danger had passed. 

“Yeah,” Steve calls down, his voice stubbornly weak. “We’re fine. Ran into a- a guard or something. He’s dead.” 

“Not good,” Dum Dum says, surprising Steve for a moment until he continues. “If he was a guard, then he’ll probably be missed. More will be coming for sure now.” 

Steve, Falsworth and Dernier leave the dead Nazi, and Steve digs a shovel out of the discarded military equipment. They use it to break open the wooden door, and sure enough, inside is a small chamber with blank walls, save for one panel fixed with a carved relief of a grinning skull surrounded by a coil of tentacles. Steve explains their tactic of using explosives from the other side, and Falsworth quickly starts directing the other prisoners out of range of the blast. All the while, Steve keeps an eye on the prisoners filtering through the door, hoping to see Bucky any moment.

It takes a long time for them to march down the stairs, stuck moving single file, slowly and quietly as they stumble into the dimly lit dungeon. It starts to fill up, and Steve starts getting worried. He can’t hear the sounds of fighting anymore, but it could just be because they are so far underground the sound of explosions can’t reach them. Steve sure hopes that’s the case, or else the Nazi’s will be looking for their missing prisoners.

“Damn it, where is he…” Steve mutters, as the last of them make their way down the steps into the crowded dungeon. The stragglers are thin, wearing not much more than rags and leaning heavily on the ones strong enough to help them. The smell underground quickly becomes putrid, and Steve has to remind himself that these men likely haven’t bathed in weeks, maybe even months, and forced into backbreaking labor. Steve trots up the steps, pushing past the last few men who make their way down, then stops to listen towards the darkness ahead, where the stairwell twists up and out of sight. No one else seems to be coming, so he heads up one level, then the next, picking up the pace until he’s practically sprinting up the steps.


	26. Krausberg, Austria - November 3, 1943 - The Journey Home

It’s stupid, his chest is already tight with an urge to wheeze and now he’s doing the one thing that will for sure trigger a full on asthma attack, but when he bursts through the door at the end of the glass strewn hallway, all he feels is relief. Bucky is struggling to get a man to his feet, practically dragging him forward, slipping on icy shards of glass and slushy snow in oversized boots. The prisoner is pale, thin, murmuring something with his eyes barely opened. His knees and hands are bloody, fresh cuts from falling into the glass on the floor, and his shirt is hanging off his protruding collarbones, like he shrank out of his own skin.

“Come on, pal, you’re almost there!” Bucky says, not yet noticing Steve in the doorway. “Just one more set of stairs to go down. Watch it! You’re doing great, but we gotta’ hurry or else-”

“Bucky!” Steve dashes forward, nearly slips on the mess under his boots too, and immediately ducks under the free arm of the prisoner. “I’ll help.” 

No tearful reunions, not even a hello, and Bucky grunts, “Fucking _Christ_ , Steve Rogers!” He hoists his fellow prisoner’s arm up higher over his own shoulder, to account for the extra leverage Steve provides. “Shoulda’ known you’d show up here.” 

Steve thinks Bucky doesn’t sound all that happy to see him, but they have bigger problems. Somewhere on the mountain pass, probably miles away, a gun turret must have swung too wide and machine gun fire rips through the already shattered windows, punching holes in the walls in a wide arch over their heads. The three drop to the floor, Steve throwing his hands over the injured prisoner’s head. Bucky swears up a storm, and tries to curl around them both, stone chips bursting from the wall to shower them with dust. The window frames are all but pulverized, metal contorting to every pulse of gunfire, the remaining glass flying free.

Then the gunfire arches up, punching through the ceiling above them and continues in red hot streaks overhead. “We have to move!” Bucky shouts, while Steve coughs from the dust and adrenaline. “Up, up, up!” 

The prisoner is faster to respond than Steve, muttering something in broken French as he struggles upright. Steve gets to his feet and back to work, helping him to the door. “The stairs are narrow. We won’t be able to help him all the way down.” 

Bucky surprises him by translating into French, and the prisoner weakly nods and walks a little straighter. Traveling down the stairs is a nightmare. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen a human being try so hard, working his injured body to inch his way down the long, spiral descent into the dungeon. At one point, they catch the sound of squeaking hinges after they pass a landing, and Bucky reacts by cramming both Steve and the Frenchman into a doorway before vanishing back upstairs. There’s a scuffle, a wet gagging sound, and Steve closes his eyes, imagining the SS officer from downstairs that Dernier had killed so effortlessly. Bucky returns in a hurry, his expression tight, and Steve doesn’t ask what’d happened.

The prisoner keeps one hand on the wall, digging his fingers into the grooves between the stones, knuckles white against his straining, pale skin. Bucky and Steve trade off under his other arm, mostly because the stairwell is so narrow, Steve is the only one that can actually walk side-by-side with the prisoner through most of it. Aside from a few words of encouragement to the French prisoner, and some back and forth about how to handle him through particularly difficult turns in the stairwell, Bucky remains pretty much silent the whole way down. 

By the time they reach the dungeon, Steve is gasping, sweat soaking through his shirt all the way into the lining of Bonbon’s leather jacket. If he never has to tromp up another flight of stairs for the rest of his life, it will be too soon. They make their way through the heavy door and Bucky slams it shut behind them, throwing the bolt closed. 

“Hey, kid!” Dum Dum shouts from the swell of prisoners below. “Thought we lost you!” He waves and pushes through the crowd to meet them at the bottom of the steps, then tosses Steve his bright blue helmet. “Sarge!” He says, doing a double-take when he sees Bucky. “You made it! Never had a doubt.” 

“Dum Dum!” Bucky throws a hug around his brother-in-arms, then quickly separates to punch him on the shoulder. “Never woulda’ guessed your sorry ass made it out of that firefight in Azzano! Figured them Nazis woulda’ shot that stupid mustache right off your face.” 

“That makes two of us,” Dum Dum laughs out, stroking his bright orange facial hair proudly with two fingers, then quickly switches gears when he turns back to Steve. “There was some mortar fire earlier shaking up the joint, so we blew the doors. Got some Brit telling us you went back for the sarge here, so thought I’d keep an eye open up top. Jonesy and Junior are helping the men down below. Any trouble getting down here?”

“Some,” Bucky says, with a casual shrug of the shoulder. “It was handled.” 

“Atta’ boy,” Dum Dum tells him, his tone striking a chord of grim pride rather than any real satisfaction. Steve watches the exchange back and forth between them—Bucky the higher ranking soldier, but Dum Dum’s age and the sheer size giving him a certain, protective dominance when he looks at Bucky. Steve swallows down jealousy that has no business being right there in the middle of their situation. It’s probably just because Bucky hasn’t spoken two words to him outside of basic necessities since they were reunited, and now that they’re starting to hustle the massive group into the tiny portal, Steve’s starting to feel like he might just be getting a cold shoulder. 

For the most part, Dum Dum, Bucky and Steve remain on the back edges of the group, watching out for any stragglers, finding the injured French prisoner a helping hand with a limping Austrian, and keeping an eye on that big door overlooking them all. Now that they are slowly filtering out of the castle, Steve feels the tension ratchet up along his spine, and thinks he’s never had to wait in such a long, dawdling line before. Unhelpfully, his brain keeps reminding him of the historical report of this very moment, which described these same prisoners as ‘fish in a barrel’ when the Nazis had discovered their attempt to escape. He can only hope that his presence here has done something, anything, to prevent that from happening.

Steve must be cursed, because even as the terror of discovery bites down around him, someone bangs on the other side heavy door.

“Fucking jerry _bastards_ ,” Bucky hisses, and turns to Dum Dum, who tosses him a rifle without question. Bucky drops to one knee, shoulders the weapon, and shouts. “Get going fellas, I got this.”

“Bucky, you can’t-”

“You got it, Sarge,” Dum Dum says, pulling Steve into the flow of prisoners. “Come on kid.” 

“No!” Steve yanks his arm out of Dum Dum’s grip. “Please, Buck, don’t stay here. It’s not safe!” 

Bucky clicks his tongue, but doesn’t take his deadly eye off the door. “Get this civilian out of here, Corporal.”

“Come on, kid! Let the Sarge do his job,” Dum Dum growls, and when Steve pulls away again, has the nerve to wrap his arm around Steve’s body and simply haul him off his feet.

“Fuck!” Steve gasps helplessly, as Dum Dum trots through the passage into the cistern, carrying him like a football. “Put me down! God _damn_ it!”

Just then the door into the dungeon explodes off its hinges. Steve catches his breath when the massive hunk of wood and twisted iron crashes down inches away from Bucky’s position, but Bucky doesn’t move. Instead, he fires a shot that claps like thunder against the vaulted ceilings. The first Nazi tumbles head first over the bannister and smacks into the floor below, and a second follows quickly after, then a third. That’s about when Dum Dum makes it through the chamber leading to the cistern, and Steve loses sight of Bucky, who keeps a stone cold lock on that door and doesn’t look back.

It’s all going wrong. Steve’s plan was meant to rescue the prisoners before the Nazis discovered them— _all_ the prisoners. Bucky had survived in the original escape attempt, but now he’s staying behind to cover their retreat as everyone filters into the cistern. If he doesn’t make it out then it’ll be Steve’s fault for fucking with history, one hundred percent. Steve hears another shot, then another, followed by a rapid series of shots in response from the Nazis.

Dum Dum deposits Steve straight into the shallow water, right by the opening to the drain he crawled up god knows how long ago, then turns to the others. “Jonesy! We got company! Get ready to close the hatch!”

Jones looks up from a coil of fuse on a big wooden spool, and shakes his head. “We gotta’ problem! Water killed my fuse.”

A prisoner leaps down from the steps, and takes a look. “I worked demo for the Nisei Squad,” he quickly explains. “You got grenades?”

Dum Dum hesitates, hand hovering over a grenade on his belt, giving him a careful stare. 

“Jim Morita with the US Army, Ace!” The newcomer bitterly informs him, and Steve realizes that Dum Dum had been scrutinizing the man’s Japanese features. “I’m from _Fresno_.”

Apparently, that’s enough and Dum Dum nods, tosses him a grenade, and the newcomer unscrews the firing pin, lifting the handle out of the grenade’s bumpy shell. “The water will stick it to the fuse-line, and this’ll burn wet. Come on,” he adds quickly, and they trot away from the steps. Steve gives it one more bitter look, still able to hear the echoing reports of gunfire from above, then follows the others. Almost all the prisoners are through by then, with only Bucky left fighting above. 

“Fuck this,” Steve says, snatches a grenade off Dum Dum’s belt, and sprints up the steps, followed by the man’s bellowing demands to stop. If Steve is just a ‘civilian’ than he certainly doesn’t have to listen to orders, and he bolts past the prisoners, slipping through the tiny space between them and the wall.

Asthma grips Steve’s chest and his thin legs burn from sheer exhaustion, but he’ll be damned if _he_ is the reason Bucky fucking dies when he’s supposed to live. Steve doesn’t even really know how grenades work, has only ever seen them in movies, but he gets the idea. 

Of course, because he’s Steve _fucking_ Rogers and not a soldier, he trips over the uneven threshold back into the dungeon, and skids painfully along the floor, clonking his helmet against the stone so hard he sees stars. Then gunfire erupts around him. 

“Shit! Fuck!” He cries out, and scrambles to cover behind a pillar, thinking for sure he just got shot.

“Steve! The hell are you doing?” Bucky shouts, from where he’s posted behind one already pockmarked with bullet holes. “Get outta’ here!” 

Steve scrambles to his feet, wheezing so hard his chest heaves from the effort, and he stumbles into the darkened corners of the dungeon. He sprints wide, counting the pillars, stumbling over twisted piles of clothes that seem to lash out just to trip him up. Once he reaches the far wall, he flanks the door’s position. 

Steve has never been much of an athlete, has rarely bothered to throw a ball around, and sports have always been out of the question thanks to his asthma. Now, his life literally depending on it, Steve just hopes to god he has it in him. He bursts out from behind the cover of the stone pillars, right into the line of fire, probably startling the Nazis more than anything, yanks out the grenade’s pin and hurls it into the doorway. He hears them scream in alarm, and then the explosion rockets through the dungeon, deafening his hearing aids instantly and knocking him clear off his feet—

—When Steve lands, he hits the ground so hard he skids on his back for several yards, crashing into table legs, and all he can think of is getting back to his feet, of ducking behind cover in case the survivors start firing at him again. He scrambles across the floor and dives into a small alcove, then drags a stool in front of the opening to give him something— _anything—_ to hide behind. The entire world has gone quiet, like all the air was sucked out of the dungeon, taking the sound of gunfire and shattered stone with it. His pulse hammers so loudly in his ears, the room seems to shake with it. He waits, counting his wheezing breaths, wondering what the fuck just happened, and then the lights on his lab flicker back on. 

Steve practically falls out from under his own desk, the cover he thought he was taking still in Krausberg’s miserable dungeon, and looks around, bewildered. 

“How the fuck?” He gasps, then immediately stumbles to his messenger bag, yanks out his inhaler and takes two, deep puffs into his aching lungs. The medicine gets to work immediately, loosening up the wet sponge in his chest, and he tries to clear his airways with a couple dry coughs. Steve collapses on the floor, yanks off his helmet and throws it to the side. 

He’s just killed someone, maybe _several_ someones, and he didn’t even see their faces. Steve backs under the desk again, curling up as tight as he can manage, overcome with something like grief for _Nazis_ of all people. He puts the lab stool back in front of him, because it feels better to have something there, blocking out the rest of the world with its thin, steel bars, and clutches his messenger bag to his chest. He stays like that a long time, eyes clenched and trembling, before he falls into an exhausted sleep.


	27. Hydra Holdings

Steve doesn’t look at the painting before he leaves the lab. He needs a break, and he’s unreasonably angry at just about everything. The museum, the war, Shield’s, _The Winter Soldier_ and Bucky both.

Bucky, who could barely spare him a second glance while Steve had risked his life to save him, risked _everything_ for a man he barely knows. Steve clenches his teeth, suddenly aware of how cold the shower is running over his cuts and scrapes, and slams the knob to turn it off before roughly toweling dry. The amount of muck that’d sloughed off his skin leaves a brackish streak down the middle of his tub, pooled into a muddy brown circle around the drain after he’d scrubbed and scrubbed, trying to get the smell of that cistern out of his pores.

It’d almost worked, but even as Steve climbs into his soft, flannel pajamas, he can still catch a vague whiff of that fetid, slimy water. It probably still clings to Bonbon’s leather jacket and maybe the helmet, both tossed over the back of his dining room chair. His clothes had gone straight into the wash as soon as he’d got home, shoved in with a whole load he’d found stuck to the inside of his washer after he’d abandoned it overnight.

He’s checked the clock over his stove a dozen times, but somehow the time doesn’t sink in and he has no idea if it’s morning or night—or even what day it is—by the time he collapses into bed. Unlike his last two trips into the past, he remembers everything clearly without losing any details along the way. The whiplash of alternating hours between 1940’s Austria and his current life in Brooklyn leaves his head spinning. As a side effect, he can’t seem to pin down both when and where he is at the same time. It doesn’t make it any easier that his phone had got smashed, so he has to poke his head into the kitchen every time he needs to remind himself. 

It’d been sometime past 10:00 PM when they arrived at Krausberg but how long did it take for him to get upstairs? It feels like it took hours to climb those stairs, find those prisoners, to get back down and-

Steve throws his blankets over his head, remembering the feeling of the grenade leaving his hand, the scream of fear when those Nazis caught sight of it. Killing people isn’t something Steve’d thought he’d ever have to do, but he did _have_ to. 

...right? 

Steve rolls over again, clutches his pillow to his chest and tries to shake off the feeling of being so exposed. Every sound rattles him out of sleep, every creak of floorboards from the upstairs neighbors, honking horns and the whine of the nearby subway line. As soon as he starts to nod off, he forgets that he’s no longer in the middle of a warzone, forgets that he doesn’t have to worry about gunfire or mines or mortars or anyone dying right in front of him. 

Eventually, he does wind up sinking into a dark, oppressive sleep, and wakes up to daylight flooding past the blinds he forgot to close. His body rebels as soon as he rolls over, his thighs burn with muscle pain and his toes curl around a bone-deep ache in his feet. His chest feels like raw hamburger meat, still stuffed with razor wire after that horrible asthma attack. 

Steve just isn’t built for what he went through, physically or emotionally. He sits up in bed, thinking on that, wondering if anyone actually is built for that much violence. Bucky seems to have had no problem with it, or Dernier, or Dum Dum, or Falsworth. To them, that sort of thing is just their job. But no, Bucky’s grim determination, Dum Dum’s quiet reassurance, Dernier’s pragmatic dispatching, they aren’t without obvious cost to the men involved. 

Soldiers don’t seem to disagree that war is hell, but how do they manage just walking around like normal people after seeing what they see? After doing what they do? Steve didn’t see the Nazis on the top of the stairs die from his grenade, but he knows they did, and all he can do is imagine their shocked expressions when they’d realized it was the end of the line for them. 

Steve gets up, too sick to sleep, and bitterly admits he’s still angry at everyone besides. He intentionally doesn’t check the time, doesn’t open his laptop or check his iPad, and instead cooks up fried eggs, bacon, melts cheddar over a crispy hot bagel, then presses it altogether in a fatty, delicious sandwich. Even that doesn’t seem to be enough, so Steve microwaves a burrito and nibbles on it while he finally opens his laptop. 

“Huh,” Steve mumbles past a mouthful of chipotle chicken, when it turns out to be Thursday. He has only one more day before the weekend to finish the conservation on _The Winter Soldier_ , and he hasn’t even looked at it since the day before yesterday. 

He finds ten missed emails from Peggy in his inbox, all of which he ignores, and one from Sam, which he opens immediately. There’s an attachment that loads on the screen before Steve even reads the text of the message, and he lets out a tired sigh. There’s Bucky in grainy black and white, standing alongside Dum Dum, Jones, Juniper, Falsworth, Dernier and the Nisei demo expert that Dum Dum mistook for a Japanese national. What did he say his name was? _Jim_ , Steve finally remembers, after staring at his face long enough, and then it finally dawns on him: _Bucky has two arms._

He scrolls back up and hastily reads Sam’s message. Apparently, the guys at the Monuments Men Foundation were so curious about the Howling Commandos that they kept digging, and eventually unearthed a rare photograph of the specialized joint Allied task force. For a fleeting moment, Steve thinks he’s done it, he’s changed the past, saved Bucky’s arm, put him on a trajectory that will keep him from returning to the alps to die on that train. Then Sam complicates that theory when he leaves off his email with a question about Bucky’s arm, and how the records of his discharge must have been wrong because it’s clearly not missing in the photo. 

Steve slumps in his seat, confused. How could he have changed anything at all if the records of Bucky’s injury are still there?

At least the photo proves that they all made it out of the cistern after Steve had been blown up. What the hell could they have thought happened to him after he threw that grenade? Steve’s headache chooses that moment to return, a deep buzz of pain lancing the back of his left eye, so the question has to wait. After he swallows two Tylenol, he goes back to staring at the photo and winds up wondering the same thing himself. Did he black out when the explosion knocked him back? Is that how he comes back? 

The first two times he stumbled into the past he actually fell asleep, warm and comfortable in Bucky’s apartment, but then woke up with almost no memory of his time traveling. Maybe it was the violent force of being blown up that kept his memories clear this time around. Waking up in the lab wearing a bright blue helmet and the leather jacket would have been baffling if he hadn’t. It seems that he winds up in the past with everything on him that he starts with, then returns to the present with anything he has with him at the time he loses consciousness. 

Steve thinks about that while he finishes his burrito, and decides it’s time to do some shopping. 

By the time he walks into his lab Steve is about two thousand dollars poorer, but prepared for just about any weather, terrain or god forsaken sewer pipe the war saw fit to drop him in. His boots are tall, leather, and have a reinforced sole. His jacket is waterproof, with a removable lining, dappled with green camouflage. His new cargo pants have thick, padded knees, and his Under Armor shirt zips all the way up the throat, long sleeves anchored at his thumbs. His new backpack is full of supplies, things he’d never thought he’d need in his city-bound life, surrounded by Ubers and bodegas, along with a brand new phone that’s still syncing with his Apple account in his pocket as he strolls through the secure door.

The painting is still there, right where he left it uncovered like an amateur. His eyes drop to the floor, following the streak of mud along the path to where he scuttled under the workbench, fearing non-existent bullets. When he steps in front of the canvas, he drops his backpack, full of its useful supplies, stares for a few seconds, then laughs. 

Bucky is missing from the painting altogether.

All the fight goes out of him in an instant, and Steve sinks to the floor next to his discarded pack. What did he do? Bucky had lived through the Krausberg escape, otherwise he wouldn’t have joined the Howling Commandos, so where did his portrait run off to? Steve had even left the painting where he’d found it back then to make sure he wouldn’t damage Bucky’s role in the timeline. What went wrong?

By the time Peggy comes down to investigate, Steve is eyeballs deep in Dr. Banner’s chromograph, looking for evidence that there might have been a finished background between a few layers of Bucky’s portrait. There is still a chance he’s there, trapped beneath the paint, but so far Steve can’t find a trace of the blues and greens that stood out so well from his uniform or those striking eyes.

Peggy doesn’t say much as he agonizes over the x-rays, instead helps by passing tiny flecks of paint samples under the microscope for evidence that anything is left of _The Winter Soldier_. Finally, she sets an electrophoresis gel to baking and sits back in her seat, and the air in the room shifts with her mood.

“Alright,” she starts, and Steve braces himself. “I think we ought to stop for a cup of tea, don’t you?” 

“Um…” 

If he has to be fired today, then getting it over with while holding a steaming cup of caffeine in his hands sounds doable. At least he’d have something to stare at other than his feet, so he agrees and they make their way to one of the museum’s cafes. Rather than sit among the tourists at the cafe’s small tables, Peggy takes him to one of the many outdoor galleries and they find a bench near an abstract piece of twisted iron, thick with rust from being so exposed, just as the artist likely intends.

“Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?” Peggy cooly inquires. “You put in insane hours recently. Almost thirty straight through if our badge system is correct. Then you vanish for a day and a half and show up looking like you’ve been in the mountains for a spell.” 

Steve glances quickly down at his sporty, new look but doesn’t think that’s very fair. He hasn’t been anywhere in this stuff other than the subway. He thinks for a moment before he answers, because he’s not sure what he can say that she’ll believe. 

“I know I’ve messed up a lot lately. I know this might cost you the Shield’s account.” 

“Bollox to the Shield’s account,” Peggy snaps, then she’s the one that winds up staring into the plastic lid of her to-go cup. “I’m worried about _you_. This isn’t like you, Steve. I know how it can be when you’re heads down on a project, but this has gotten a little out of hand. Don’t you think?”

It’d definitely felt out of hand when Steve was lobbing a grenade at three SS officers. “That’s fair…”

Peggy’s large brown eyes flick from her tea to Steve, but she takes a breath when she realizes he’s not going to come up with any explanation. “Alright. Well, I wanted to give you space to recover, but there’s no time. I’ve been speaking with Sharon about Shield’s and she’s found some interesting information about Alexander Pierce. He’s not only Chairman of the auction house, but of course Hydra Holdings, a luxury goods conglomerate founded in the thirties, which owns controlling interest of Shield’s.” 

“Alright,” Steve says with a small shrug. This isn’t news to anyone, and probably all listed in detail on Alexander Pierce’s Wikipedia page. Still, he knows Peggy is going somewhere with this, or she wouldn’t look so uncharacteristically nervous. 

“Hydra Holdings has been around, changing hands as a massive conglomerate, starting in Germany before the first World War by a man named Johann Schmidt. Even though he eventually became a member of the Nazi party, Hydra Holdings remained in private ownership, evolving over time into the beast it is today. Sharon found a small organization in Switzerland that it acquired in the thirties, right when Hitler came into power.” 

“Before they invaded Poland, it wouldn’t have been so strange for Switzerland to do business with a German company,” Steve reasons.

“No, but it would be rather odd if the President of that company were to continue working with Hydra Holdings, right up through the end of the war. His name? Dr. Arnim Zola.” 

Steve’s mouth drops. “A.Z.” 

Peggy nods. “Apparently, he ran a ‘neutral’ art exchange during the war. He would broker deals on Shield’s behalf as a neutral party, but all along, his company was owned by Hydra Holdings just the same as them.” 

Steve walks through the logic, understanding the steps along the way, stunned by the elegance of the con. “A German company buying a Swiss company to sell itself looted artwork…” 

“To then move it to the Soviet Union by train, into the safekeeping of none other than Vasily Karpov.” 

Steve puts down his cup. He left the teabag in too long and now it’s too dark, and bitter in his throat. “Zola sold them his own artwork along the way,” Steve reasons. “Effectively defrauding them at the same time.” 

“So far as we know, _The Winter Soldier_ is his only surviving artwork. If we could find the red ledger, we could prove all this was intentionally meant to illegally move looted artwork out of Western Europe, to ensure it wouldn’t be found if Germany lost the war. Hydra Holdings was never beholden to Hitler. They just used the chaos of the conflict for profit. If the world only knew the source of their fortune, Hydra Holdings, Shield’s, Pierce… They’d all be finished.” 

The red ledger. That has been Steve’s mission from the beginning. Bucky has just been a means to find it, and yet he’d been so distracted with rescuing Bucky at Krausberg he’d wandered right into Arnim Zola’s own studio and failed to even think to look for it. 

“Why did they allow us to access the painting in the first place?” Steve shakes his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Phil Coulson,” Peggy says with a sad sigh. “He was the one responsible for opening the vault, and recognized some of the major works. Shield’s has so much property, so many holdings, and so many aging benefactors that they inherit works from, even they didn’t realize what they had on their hands until after he went to the press with it. Sending _The Winter Soldier_ to us is the perfect cover. People are excited to talk about the Met’s new mysterious restoration effort, instead of focusing on the complicated bureaucracy of the rest of the art hoard.”

“So we’re being used,” Steve thinks out loud, then to himself considers how Bucky is being used as well, drawing him into the painting, yanking him into the past and giving him a reason to risk everything to learn more.

“Worse than that, I’m afraid,” Peggy adds. “The Russian probate closed sooner than expected. Pierce is on his way to collect the painting, and I can’t stop him from taking it.” 


	28. Security

After sharing her devastating news, Peggy’s expression suddenly shifts, as she really takes in Steve’s appearance. “I’m sorry, is that a military helmet?”

“How long?” Steve blurts out, leaping to his feet. It’s not fair, he was supposed to have the painting until at least Sunday, maybe even Monday morning in case they need to bring back the porters.

“I put him off by a few hours,” Peggy explains, still not quite sure what to make of the bright blue helmet attached to Steve’s pack as they head downstairs to the lab. “It’s legally the property of Shield’s. We can’t hold it here any longer. Luckily we have most of the information we need, even if—”

“We don’t, though!” The red ledger, Bucky’s disappearance from the painting, Steve still needs to fix everything and he can’t do that without _The Winter Soldier_. He drops his pack, helmet and all, on his lab bench then digs out his phone. The line on the other end rings and rings, until Steve starts to pace. When it goes to voicemail, Steve would have crushed his phone if he’d had the strength, but instead forces himself to relax enough to speak. 

“Hey, Sam—Major Wilson. This is Steve Rogers. I wanted to know if you still had that report of Bucky—of James Buchanan Barnes and the accident on the train. I think there might have been something I missed. Give me a call back when you get a chance.” 

“Who is Major Wilson?” Peggy asks, so Steve tells her while he prepares his supplies. How he signed out the Met’s van from the motor pool, dug through the archives to discover the identity of the soldier in the painting, and ultimately confirmed his death. He shares the report about Azzano, then his nerve starts to waver when he tries to explain what happened in Krausberg as if reciting from old, dusty documents and not his very own experience. 

Lying isn’t something that comes naturally to Steve, and he trips over his tongue in an effort to keep from explaining details that wouldn’t be in official reports. The dungeon full of prisoner’s discarded property, the weeping moisture on the cistern walls, the overwhelming stink of unwashed bodies filling endless, narrow stairways as they’d made their painfully slow escape. He tries not to go into these details even as they crowd to the front of his thoughts, demanding his attention, forcing him to remember.

It helps to keep his hands busy, so as Steve tries to make it sound like none of the Krausberg escape happened to himself, he sets out acetone for solvent, rectified petroleum for restrainer, and packages of cotton wool with hemostats for blotting. He carefully lays down daubs of pigments, blending them with a small palette knife until he gets the exact range of rusts and olives for the maudlin painting, with one tiny corner of his palette reserved for the beautiful diamond blue of Bucky’s eyes.

Peggy listens intently, watching him work without interrupting or trying to help. Despite decades of experience in conservation, her core discipline is in sculpture, and she isn’t the sort of boss who micromanages even the most junior of staff. She’s probably the only boss he’s ever worked with that hasn’t felt the need to critique his choices of solvents or forceps or palettes while in the same room, happy to be an observer only, and Steve has grown used to trusting this relationship enough to work as if his boss weren’t in the room at all. 

Maybe if Steve were paying closer attention he would have had a better warning for what she winds up saying when he finally finishes his story.

“Ah, Steve,” she says with a heavy sigh. “So that’s what it is. You’re in love.” 

“What!” Steve is so stunned he drops his nitrile gloves. “What do you mean?”

Peggy’s mouth quirks into a smile, and she nods towards the canvas with her eyebrows raised high enough to suggest exactly what she means. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this side of you. You’re always committed to your work, but this…” She makes an elegant little gesture with her hand towards the canvas, taking in not only the painting itself, but the hours of research, Steve’s erratic work schedule, and his dedication to the painting’s subject. He doesn’t get this involved, so far above and beyond a few weekend hours in order to x-ray a suspected forgery. That’s when Peggy takes it a step further. “The way you talk about Bucky, like he’s someone you know, even your best friend. You love him, and you want to bring him out of the paint… He’s your inspiration. As an _artist_.” 

Steve snatches his gloves off the floor, snaps them over his hands, and doesn’t answer right away. “It’s not that,” he finally says, deciding to argue. “It’s just this project. I’m taking it personally, considering the history behind it. Shield’s has no right to be in business if they built their empire on looted art. It’s… it’s just the right thing to do.”

“I’m sure,” Peggy says, clearly not believing his excuse. She approaches the canvas, arms folded carefully before she leans in close, nearly where Bucky’s sightline is supposed to be, looking out at the modern world with those bright, sad eyes. She holds her breath searching intently for signs of the painting’s lost subject, before she steps back and straightens her shoulders, like she just made an important decision. “All the same, I think we do what we can to protect your work.”

Steve has seen this look on Peggy before, something that goes well beyond politics, well beyond conservation. It’s personal and unwavering, and as she makes a phone call to the head of security, it slowly sinks in that she referred to _The Winter Soldier_ as _his_ work.

“What are you doing?” Steve feels oddly calm when he calls out his boss, his mentor, after listening to her lie through her teeth to the head of security about a strange noise coming from the lab’s camera. 

Peggy shoots a look from over the top of her phone as she continues to text, and doesn’t answer right away. He gets the sense it’s only because she’s waiting for him to react before she decides to tell him what she’s up to. Steve waits, and eventually she puts down her phone. 

“In a few minutes, Luis Peña will come here to check that camera,” she explains, indicating the innocuous black dome covering the security camera in the lab’s ceiling with a nearly imperceptible glance. “Don’t look at it,” she warns him, then turns towards the tall storage frames where the other works currently await their own restoration plans. “ _Crown II_ is already wrapped up for transport to France, correct?”

“ _Crown II_?” Steve repeats, having entirely forgotten about the copied Bouguereau they’ve been holding for the traveling French millionaire. A painting very much the same dimensions as _The Winter Soldier_ , and Steve says again, this time the high thread of his voice fraying at the edges, “ _What_ are you _doing_?”

Peggy doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s in desperate need of further authentication, wouldn’t you say? The museum never officially had it x-rayed after all.” Her inflection on the word ‘officially’ makes it clear she’s using a loophole Steve’d unwittingly created when he’d used his own time to x-ray the painting, without including it in his official restoration plan or his log. “I just placed an order for a full chromograph with Dr. Banner. How convenient that it’s already been wrapped up for Monsieur La Rochelle. Come to think of it, we’ll go ahead and send _Winter_ out with it, considering the state of things after your last scraping. Who knows what you’ll see on a fresh chromograph, now that all those layers are removed.” 

Peggy has a way of shrugging that flips her rich brown curls over one shoulder, than the other, a gesture of utter confidence, like how a professional boxer cracks their knuckles before a bar fight. He can already tell where all this is going. This is the moment she offers him a choice.

Steve looks back to the canvas, the detail of the brick where Bucky once stood, the dinged up bicycle, the red ledger, the town in the distance and the dark streak of the train waiting at the small station, smoke billowing from its stack. Steve can almost hear it chuffing in preparation to leave Azzano behind, the dark red eye of the steam engine glowing in the night. 

There must be one, final image of Bucky himself under that layer. Somehow, Steve also knows this is his last chance to return to the war, to save Bucky, to prove the history books wrong.

Steve doesn’t have to think twice before he quickly dismounts _The Winter Soldier_ from his easel and helps Peggy crate it up. He regrets that he didn’t lay down his oils on a stay-wet palette, because now he’ll have to re-mix them and reorganize the rest of his supplies he stashes with the painting. 

When Luis arrives he seems to read Peggy’s plan the moment he enters the lab, ladder in hand, and nearly swallows his gum saying all at once, “Dr. Carter, ma’am, how long you need that camera inspected, because I got your back and all, but just so we’re clear it’s just an inspection and nothing like what I used to do before you got me that referral here.”

Peggy doesn’t blink through his entire explanation, and once he’s finished the three just stand in a circle, regarding one another. Steve has no idea what Luis had meant by what he ‘used to do before’, because that implies something that never should have passed a background check. Peggy knocks on the crate beside her, the one containing _Crown II_ , and says, “Excellent!” and Steve isn’t even a little bit surprised that this could very well mean this isn’t the first time Peggy’s done something like this. They have a lot to talk about when this is all over. 

Luis whistles as he inspects the disarmed camera for Peggy’s telltale ‘bloody obnoxious buzzing’, making it clear that he is both nonchalant and not at all paying attention to what they are up to as they quietly wheel both paintings out of the lab in matching crates on identical dollies, side-by-side.

Anyone watching would have seen only one painting removed that morning from the Met, assuming it was _The Winter Soldier_ , since Steve and Peggy had crated it up in full view of the camera before it’d been disconnected. They wouldn’t have seen Steve and Peggy split up halfway down the long corridors of the museum’s laboratory facility, in a junction where the cameras come upon an unavoidable blindspot. Steve’s package is then wheeled into a different lab, one with industrial presses and heavy anvils for repairing the museum’s weapons and armor collection. Steve himself meets back up with Peggy on the other end of the hall, just in time to get caught on camera as if he never left her side. With both crates wheeled side-by-side in front of the security camera’s particular sightlines, any recording wouldn’t suggest more than one painting left Steve’s lab. 

Of course, _Crown II_ is the only one that makes it to Dr. Banner’s facility, and just like that, Steve becomes an art thief.

By the time he and Peggy return to the museum, Steve uses the helmet on his pack—something he’d mentioned he’d found looking for World War II uniform references in yet another sweating lie—as an excuse to visit the weapons and armor restoration lab. Tony Stark, the brilliant and eccentric engineer who is solely responsible for conserving and restoring the museum’s eight-hundred piece collection, is almost never in on weekdays anyway. Steve doesn’t think twice of hijacking the workshop, moving the ventilation hose from over a soldering station to the middle of the room where he manages to rig up a makeshift easel with the help of the painting’s traveling crate and the side of a work table.

Peggy returns by the time he finally remixes his pigments on a piece of particle board he’d dug out of the workshop’s trash bin (or supply bin? Steve can’t really tell the difference in the chaos of the unfamiliar space.) She gives his backpack a curious once over, but doesn’t mention it as she goes back to running interference for them both with a furious series of text messages, then finally takes a seat.

“We’ve managed to buy you a day. Luckily, _Crown II_ is going for an additional round of scans, and since Dr. Banner was told to be extra thorough, he’s planning on keeping it overnight,” Peggy stretches then, cracking her knuckles over her head. “Really, it was nice getting my hands dirty again. I miss the smell of glue.” She’d had to adhere the protective tissue over _Crown II_ to go through the full gamut of x-rays herself while Steve had set up _The Winter Soldier_. The workshop doesn’t have interior windows like Steve’s lab, making it the ideal location for him to work on a painting that is supposedly offsite, but it does take some getting used to. The tools aren’t in the right place, the light isn’t quite right, and it takes Steve a long time to suss out where Tony Stark hides his magnifier visor. It isn’t ideal, but it’ll get the job done, if Steve manages to work up the nerve to touch the painting in front of him.

Peggy seems to sense his hesitation, but waits a long time before she finally asks, “So, what’s your plan?”

Steve’s gloved hands hover over the handle of his hemostats, as he tries to think of how to answer that question without yet another lie. He remembers to gather up his pack instead, making sure to grab Bonbon’s helmet. “I’m going to try and get to the bottom of this. I know the painting is going to bring us closer…” Steve carefully thinks over the next part of what he wants to say, even as he hoists his backpack onto his shoulders and Peggy watches with a curious little frown. “This. Um. If I say anything weird. It’s just part of my process.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a few calls to make. Just for security.” Peggy snickers then, and gives him a friendly wink. “May as well hide out here while Pierce chases that Beaugureau forgery. Besides, I’ve watched you work before. We all have our process.”

“Not like this,” Steve mumbles, and hopes that he doesn’t talk to the painting like a lunatic while she watches. If he were smart, he’d have asked Luis to review the recordings from his lab while he’d been working the past few days, to see what his body gets up to while he time travels. All he can do now is drop the helmet on his head and pick up a tight wad of cotton wool with a pair of hemostats, and lean into the painting, right where Bucky’s eyes should— 


	29. London, England - March 10, 1945 - The Whip & Fiddle

—Steve stumbles face first into the pavement, weighed down by his backpack and the sudden vertigo of being abruptly elsewhere. The hemostats clatter off the sidewalk into a puddle, soaking the cotton immediately with water from the gutter, and he scrambles back to his feet to get a better look around. 

Rather than a forest, a cistern, a castle, Steve finds himself on a city street, only it’s unlike any street he’s ever seen in New York. The buildings are tall and narrow, densely packed, and the streets are cobbled, winding down into narrow offshoots. There’s sandbags piled up on each corner, and even though a few civilian cars sputter by, most of the people he sees on the streets are actually soldiers in beige and tan uniforms. Most of the shades in all the buildings are drawn, the street lamps are nothing but darkened posts above him, and the upper windows have big X’s marking every pane of glass. The air smells like rain and gunpowder. 

Is he in France? England? Another liberated Italian town like Azzano? A door nearby crashes open, and an American soldier stumbles out into the pool of golden light thrown against the sidewalk. The soldier laughs, waits for a few beats of the jazz music inside, and a girl in a cornflower blue dress falls into his arms. Steve steps back, giving them space to pass, and looks up at the sign above the door after it swings shut. An old wooden sign creaks back and forth in the light breeze, dripping water from the recent rainfall.

 _The Whip & Fiddle_ is carved into the sign in big blocky letters that could use a fresh coat of paint. Steve glances up and down the street, wondering which direction to go. Every other time he’s traveled into the past his next steps were relatively obvious. Chase down bigoted shouts, follow Bucky to the World Exposition of Tomorrow, walk into the only shelter he sees in a miserably cold and wet forest. Steve is about to just pick a direction and start walking when he suddenly realizes the song he can hear inside is the exact same one he and Bucky had danced to the first night he’d spent in the past. It stands to reason Bucky would wind up on leave in a place like this, especially after what he’d been through at Krausberg. 

Steve lifts his helmet, runs his fingers in his hair, as if what he looks like actually matters, and walks into the pub. It’s dim and smokey inside, and at first he figures he’s made a mistake when he doesn’t see anyone dancing. Men in American, British, and other Allied uniforms he doesn’t recognize are drinking like it’s a celebration, laughing and puffing on thin cigarettes. It’s the complete opposite of the depressing atmosphere of the streets, without a hint that people are scared of bombs raining down on their heads. 

The pub is narrow but long, and as he makes his way towards the back he passes enough people to piece together that they must be in England. Pale beer sloshes on the floor from men trying to carry one too many pints, a surly bartender barks at a boy swiping a dingy gray rag across the polished countertops, and a woman in a bright, red dress makes a bawdy comment about knickers that makes one man spit his drink out onto the sticky floor. Steve has to stand on his toes to see over the crowd as he wades in. He scans the faces of the soldiers, looking for anyone familiar, and nearly gives up until he finally reaches the back. It’s darker on this side of the long, narrow bar, with low, round tables spaced out for larger groups to sit down, chat or share a bite to eat. 

Steve catches sight of Dum Dum first, that ginger mustache standing out from his bright, clean face. The man’s eyes go about three times their normal size when he catches sight of Steve, and then Dernier, Falsworth, Jones, and Morita, all stop and turn to stare. They look different from when Steve’d last seen them, clean, strong, and wearing all new gear, which hardly looks standard issue. Dum Dum is even wearing a felted bowler cap. This must be the Howling Commandos, special detachment of allied forces, and unofficial hit squad for the Monuments Men.

With his back to the door, Bucky is the last one to look over his shoulder, and Steve tries not to swallow his own tongue. Bucky’s dark hair is styled with a charming swoop across his brow, just like when Steve had run into him in Brooklyn and they’d danced the night away. He’s clean shaven, his jawline razor sharp, and his coat is blue and shiny, like it’s made out of sturdy silk, and brings out the blue in his eyes, even in the dimly lit pub. Steve has to ignore the way his heart clenches as he watches Bucky’s bright smile fall off his face as soon as he recognizes him.

After a moment of stunned silence, Falsworth cries out, “Jiminy _Christmas_!” He breaks the spell when he shoots out of his seat, and the others all welcome Steve with an overwhelming amount of swearing and pats on the back so hard they nearly knock him off his feet. Bucky is the only one that remains seated, watching the exchange over the rim of his glass. He isn’t quite frowning, but it doesn’t take much for Steve to know he’s not as surprised as the others to see Steve alive.

“Alright kid,” Dum Dum insists when they settle back down, then shoves a chair in his direction “Pull up a seat!”

“Thanks,” Steve pulls off his pack and sets it on the floor under the table, along with his helmet. When he glances back up he notices someone missing. “Where’s Juniper?” 

Jones actually flinches in his seat, Falsworth glances away, and Dum Dum shakes his head before he starts to answer. Bucky cuts in before he gets there. “In a coffin, headed home,” he says, and slides his empty glass away from him, like he’s not just finished with his drink, but with Steve as well. “Thought you woulda’ known that, on account of where you come from and all.”

The way Bucky looks at him, the way his eyes coldly narrow into points, tells Steve exactly where he means. Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century should have known when Jonathan ‘Junior’ Juniper died to Nazi machine gun fire, just outside of Azzano. He could have looked it up, like he did for Bucky. Steve feels the comment like a slap, and his eyes drop down to his boozy welcome back gift. The sting of Bucky’s anger isn’t quite as painful as the guilt that comes with it, knowing he could have done something if he’d only thought of anyone else’s life in this war other than Bucky’s and his own.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says quietly. “I didn’t know.”

“Course not,” Dum Dum huffs out, putting on a brave face. “Don’t worry about it, kid. Junior was- Well, he- he died a hero.” Dum Dum coughs, brushes a finger through his mustache, then clears his throat and switches gears. “To Junior!” 

“To Junior!” The rest echo, Steve coming in only a little late as they raise their glasses in a toast. Steve tries to catch Bucky’s eye where he sits across the table, but it seems like Bucky really can’t be bothered, preoccupied with taking several long gulps of a fresh beer.

“All the same,” Falsworth starts, giving Steve a warm smile. “It’s a relief to see you made it out of Krausberg alive. In a way, you’re the reason we all got to join the Howling Commandos.”

“Isn’t that the truth!” Dum Dum laughs. “We get to go hunting art thieves all over Europe and it all started when the Sarge here got recruited after the escape.”

Dernier says something in French to Jones, who answers back before turning to Steve. “How did you manage it?” He says. “How did you get out of the castle?” 

“We all thought you were a goner,” Dum Dum says, and the others agree with a nod. “Sarge said you got out, but it was hard to believe. That place lit up like the fourth of July! Figured you’d know what you were doing, seeing as how you got all us there in the first place.” 

“Of course he did!” Bucky cuts in. His laugh is bitter and short before he turns those mean daggers of his eyes on Steve. The others finally pick up on the tension between them and their revelry turns awkward. “Ain’t no surprise there. Didn’t he tell you fellas? Stevie here is from the future! Knows all about secret passages and Nazi castles. Too bad he didn’t give Junior a heads up about that sniper, or Ubby a warning about those tank traps in Hürtgen. Think he cared about saving our sorry asses in Austria? All he wanted was Dr. Zola’s red ledger.” Bucky kicks at the table leg with another bitter laugh. “No surprise that he shows up now, considering.”

“Bucky…” Steve whispers, just to fill the dead silence that follows, but Bucky’s had enough. He throws his chair back and marches away from the table.

“Sarge!” Dum Dum gets to his feet, but Bucky has already disappeared into the crowd.

“What did he mean?” Steve says, torn between diving in after Bucky and staying behind until he cools off and comes back on his own. “When he said that it’s no surprise I show up now.” 

Jones glances at Dum Dum, who nods. “Classified intel, but our unit is being sent back to Austria. There’s supposedly a trainload of artwork headed for Switzerland, but the Monuments Men can’t prove it and as a neutral country, the Army technically isn’t allowed to follow. That’s kind of what we’re for, going in where regular soldiers can’t.” 

“How- How long have I been gone? What year is it?” 

“Come again?” Falsworth mutters and Dum Dum frowns. 

Steve tries to stay patient. “What’s the date?” 

“March tenth, nineteen forty-five,” Morita says, and watches Steve carefully as it sinks in that it’s been six months since the rescue. “It’s a Saturday.” 

Steve turns to leave, but Dum Dum quickly stands. “You should probably know it’s the Sarge’s birthday.” There wasn’t much that could have made Steve doubt his next move, but that did it. He hesitates for just a moment as Dum Dum finishes explaining, “We were in here celebrating. Thought the guy could use a stiff drink.”

Steve bolts after Bucky. It’s not just that he wants to talk to him, to explain himself, to tell him damn near everything about the painting and Shield’s and Hydra Holding. It’s that he immediately recalls that he’d never told Bucky the red ledger belonged to Arnim Zola. Bucky apparently knew all that on his own.

“Bucky!”

“Fuck off, Rogers.” Bucky’s lit a cigarette, and throws the match in the gutter while he marches down the street.

Without six months to recover, Steve is still sore from his miserable time in the cistern. His legs are already burning and his lungs clench to remind him of his recent brush with asthma. “Bucky, wait!”

“No thanks!” Bucky stops short when a Jeep lumbers by, then blows out a plume of smoke before stepping into the street. 

“Damn it, Bucky! I have your painting!”

The words yank Bucky back as effectively as a leash, and he stares in shock from the curb while Steve slows down to catch his breath. It isn’t something Steve planned to tell him, and watching the color drain from Bucky’s face makes him instantly regret it.

Bucky goes to lift his cigarette to his lips, looks at it in surprise, then crushes it under his boot. “Still… Still tryin’ to quit,” he murmurs lamely. Bucky jams his fists into the pockets of his blue coat when Steve finally reaches him, panting in the damp air.

Suddenly, Steve isn’t quite sure what to say to him. “Quitting’s less important as getting through it,” Steve argues, because the last thing Bucky needs to feel is guilty for smoking.

Bucky’s own breath comes out in a chilled cloud when he finally speaks about the painting itself. “How did you know?”

“It’s how I know you. This. All of this,” Steve gestures around him. “I’m an art restorer for the Met. I have your portrait. Zola painted it in Krausberg, didn’t he.”

It hadn’t really been a question but Bucky nods anyway.

Steve can see something other than Bucky’s rage, a kind of helplessness creeps over his shoulders and makes him shrink. Shame?

“Why did he do it?”

Bucky tenses all over, and his gaze casts around the sidewalk, like he might find the answer there in the cracks of the pavement. He settles for kicking his burnt cigarette butt into the gutter before he answers. “Said he wanted insurance from some company called Hydra. Said he was going to make sure some Nazi named Schmidt got the message. Had that red book of yours, too. I think that’s the message he wanted to send, anyway.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Steve tells him. “Why’d he paint _you_?”

Bucky gives a flippant shrug to prove how little he cares, but doesn’t look up even once from the sidewalk as he speaks. “He was some kinda pervert, I don’t know. Kept telling me how beautiful my eyes were. The others. They- they don’t know. Couldn’t exactly say I was sitting around letting some Swiss weasel pose me like a doll while they were breakin’ their backs in that mine. Woulda’ rather been right there next to ‘em than brought to that studio every day.”

Steve wants to offer Bucky comfort, to wrap him in a hug and tell him it’s not his fault, but Bucky would hate that. He’s too humiliated to acknowledge the violation, not ready to be vulnerable with Steve while his guard is up. Still, this isn’t a conversation for the street. He hopes he doesn’t look too helpless when he asks, “Is there someplace we could talk?”

A muscle in Bucky’s jaw pops out as he clenches his teeth, his fists stretch the front of his jacket as he groans up at the sky. When he looks back down to earth, his expression has softened. “Yeah, alright,” he sighs, almost smiling again, then passes Steve, walking back towards The Whip & Fiddle. “You coming?”


	30. London, England - March 10, 1945 - It’s been a long, long time

The Howling Commandos are put up in the rooms above the pub, and even though the revelry downstairs is far from finished, the only noise that seeps up through the floorboards is the occasional sharp laugh and the dull warbling of the record player. Bucky’s room isn’t huge, but there’s a clean rug on the floor and a desk directly next to the door is scattered with maps and papers, copies of important artwork and photos of Nazi leaders. It wouldn’t look too out of place in Steve’s own lab, aside from the Nazi portraits of course. The rest of the room is close enough to a bed and breakfast. A shared bathroom is down the hall, but there’s a wash stand with a chipped pitcher and a metal basin, a full length mirror and a bed that smells like fresh cotton.

There’s an overstuffed duffel next to the night stand, and Bucky drops to the bed and unbuckles his gators, apparently not planning on leaving the room for the evening. Steve is suddenly unsure where to start, so he pulls out the desk chair and looks over the various documents as Bucky strips down to his shirt sleeves, leaving his waxed canvas trousers on after he hangs his blue coat over the bedpost, along with his holster, and a utility belt that Steve can’t help but notice is weighed down with several grenades.

“You look different,” Bucky mumbles, unlacing his boots. It’s a little awkward, like even he doesn’t know exactly where to start their conversation. “Your clothes...”

“I got tired of stumbling around Europe dressed like a hipster,” Steve admits. Bucky gives him a confused look, but rather than explaining the lame attempt at a self-deprecating joke, Steve shakes his head and looks back at Bucky’s work. “Nevermind. I just wanted to be more prepared. I don’t think I’m going to get many more chances after this.”

“Chances to do what?” Bucky’s sharp words are punctuated with the _thunk_ of a heavy boot falling to the floor, and Steve turns around to find Bucky staring at him from across the room. He doesn’t look quite so angry anymore, but his patience for Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century has clearly run out. Bucky looks him right in the eye and finally demands, “What are you _doing_ here, Steve?”

Steve opens his mouth to lie again, having found that it has almost become a default response by now, but instead braces his weight into the back of the chair. “I don’t control coming here, or when or where I wind up. I found your records in a military history museum. Of your service, your capture in Azzano.” Bucky’s eyes remain narrow slits, but his throat bobs in a swallow when Steve finishes. “...Of how you die.”

“Knew I wouldn’t be coming home,” Bucky says with a smirk, almost a boyish ‘I told you so’ on the tip of his tongue, but then he blinks a little too rapidly and runs his fingers through his hair, mussing up its careful shape. “Some birthday this is turning out to be.”

Steve shoots out of the chair, takes two strides towards Bucky’s bedside. “Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think—”

“Don’t,” Bucky puts up his hand and the gesture is as good as a brick wall, stopping Steve in his tracks. “Don’t tell me you traveled through time just to save one washed up old soldier. Just don’t.”

“What?” It’s a string of descriptions Steve could never have thought would apply to Bucky, and he’s so confused he nearly shouts, “You?”

“Got a medical discharge after Azzano, but there’s nothing wrong with me as far as I could tell,” Bucky puts a hand on his chest, and Steve can hear the light metal clink of dog tags settling under his shirt. “Docs say I got shellshock, whatever the hell that means. Just fancy language for being a coward, and they don’t need cowards in the Army.”

“The records said you lost your arm.” Steve hadn’t seen anything about shellshock, the old phrase for post traumatic stress disorder, in Bucky’s discharge papers.

“I don’t qualify for any benefits if I get kicked outta’ the Army just because I told the doc I thought about eating my pistol,” Bucky snorts, and Steve is taken aback when he suddenly comprehends the euphemism for suicide. “The doctor was an alright fella’. Said he put down a real wound instead, but wouldn’t let me ship back out after that. Course’ my aim ain’t any less accurate when I got a clear sightline. Signed up for this outfit as soon as they came lookin’ for fellas with art backgrounds. I guess war is what I know best now.” By now Bucky has started working on removing his second boot, and he waits to finish his thought until it drops to the floor next to the other. “How could I just go back to the museum? Framing paintings and setting up lights. Running an installation crew ain’t nothin’ like running a unit like the Howlies.”

“Bucky…” Steve wants to argue, but he has zero authority on the subject. He’s spent a collective of—what, two days?—in the war, and already knows something fundamental inside him has changed. Bucky’s been here for _years_. Fighting, surviving, growing into a hard soldier and an even harder man. How could Steve explain PTSD to him? How could he try to soothe a lifetime of engrained social taboos about mental health and an outdated sense of what it means to be a man?

Steve switches tactics, and appeals to the soldier in him. “So even when Zola was painting you, you knew where to look. That’s how you knew about the access stairs to the dungeon, I bet. Next to his studio.”

Bucky blinks in surprise, then nods, accepting that much. “He kept sending me down there with a guard to hunt for props for his art. Costumes, a bicycle… weird stuff. Don’t think he even used most of it. But one time they opened the side room and I saw the cistern wall. I read about them, the ones the Romans left behind. Figured it’d be our only shot. Didn’t expect to be able to walk all the way back to Italy.” Bucky stands up and joins Steve at the desk, but he’s avoiding Steve’s gaze again, like he had been earlier. He opens a dark brown folder, than another, hunting through a few documents before he tugs a photograph out from under a paperclip.

Steve can smell Bucky’s aftershave, whatever product he puts in his glossy dark hair, and takes a step back from the desk to give him space. Bucky’s feeling self conscious enough already without Steve’s hovering.

“Dr. Arnim Zola, the one an’ only,” Bucky explains quietly, stabbing at the portrait with his fingertip. Steve reads over Bucky’s shoulder, not seeing a word about Hydra or Shield’s. They’re already clever enough to hide their tracks from the Allies, even in war time. In the process he drifts back towards Bucky, inevitably pulled in by Bucky’s strong current, and doesn’t realize it until Bucky turns to face him. He doesn’t seem to mind at all that Steve is so close. “He has your red book. Keeps it with him always. Just got the news we’re heading out to Austria tomorrow, to track him down. You’re tellin’ me you’re here for me? Gotta say, I’m not convinced, considering you happen to show up as soon as we get close to capturing him.”

Steve licks his lips as his memories of the past and future swirl together in an attempt to make sense out of an impossible reality. Bucky isn’t wrong: the book is his mission. He knows this as if he were a soldier himself, obeying direct orders, just another tiny body hurtled against the unrelenting machine of war. Still, he also knows that Bucky is what he needs to protect, and if he fails in that mission then there is no point to any of this.

“The painting never sends me to the book,” Steve tells him, not backing down, and Bucky’s shoulders go up with surprise as his bitterness is challenged, Steve marching right into his personal space and setting up camp with all the heat he can muster. “It sends me to _you_.”

Bucky laughs in his face, but then drops his forehead to touch Steve’s own and just stands there for a moment, eyes closed, every muscle in his body bunching up and vibrating with tension, like someone wound his spring too tightly and he’s about to crack. Steve doesn’t break his gaze, doesn’t allow Bucky to turn away, even for a second, pushing up on his toes to keep his forehead locked against Bucky’s. Then a great shudder goes through them both, and Bucky releases a broken sob. Steve gathers Bucky towards him by the waist, and Bucky goes with stunted, jerky movements, like a broken doll.

Shaking hands gently cup Steve’s ears, tracing the line down to his jaw, like Bucky is trying to feel the shape of him in the dark. “Steve!”

“I’m here,” Steve whispers, not sure what Bucky needs from him at that moment, but fully prepared to give it. Bucky’s lips press into Steve’s so softly at first that it could hardly be called a kiss, no more than a tentative connection between the two of them as they both hold their breath.

One beat. Two. In the silence they hear the high crone of the record player, music slowing down, taking on a melancholy tone as Bing Crosby’s voice floats up between the floorboards and Bucky’s kiss eases into nothing more than a shared breath. _It’s been a long, long time,_ Crosby sings, as a guitar is plucked in a warbling tune along with it. Bucky’s hips seem to absorb the beat, and he sways gently in sync, taking Steve with him into the suggestion of a dance. The sudden serenity of the moment is alarming, and Steve feels a flare of anxiety over what comes next.

“Bucky. What do you want to do about-”

“Shh,” Bucky whispers, and continues leading Steve around the rug. “It’s my birthday. I get at least one dance on my birthday.”

_You'll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you. Or just how empty they all seemed without you…_

March tenth, Bucky’s birthday. His charm when he brought Connie and Bonbon to the World Exposition of Tomorrow in Queens. His pride at looking so damn sharp in that crisp uniform. His wonder at the fanciful promises of tomorrow.

_It’s been a long, long time..._

Two years, Steve thinks. Bucky has been here for two years, and still all he wants to do is share his easy smiles and dance. It isn’t fair that so bright a light should be snuffed out by so miserable a period in history. To Steve, being whisked away onto the bicycle in Brooklyn, stumbling into a dance hall with Bucky on his arm, happened only a week ago, yet somehow he feels like Bucky has been part of his life from the start. _Haven't felt like this my dear, since I can't remember when..._

How could Steve have thought Bucky had shut himself away from all this? Somehow, Bucky himself, two years and thousands of miles removed from that spontaneous moment, can conjure up all that happy energy right there in a British hotel room, even after learning he’s about to die. That’s just the kind of person Bucky is, that’s just what he has inside himself, and what he manages to bring out in Steve. Two years ago or seventy five, it hardly matters when Steve himself seems to exist outside the regular flow of time anyway, pulled and looped back around to this one person over and over again.

Of course Steve dances. He’s still terrible at it, and Bucky is still fantastic, gently teaching Steve so much more than where to step and how to feel the beat no matter how softly the music plays. Steve craves it, this push away from his cynicism, this romantic kindness, this flirtatiousness. It’s been out of his reach for so long and yet right there in front of him all week. _Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again…_

Bucky turns Steve out into a spin, then pulls him right back in, but Steve’s gawky steps send his own chest crashing into Bucky’s, and Bucky has to catch him when it sends Steve sprawling back. They both burst into laughter, warmed by the casual intimacy of the unselfconscious awkwardness, leaving Steve giddy and Bucky’s eyes sparkling in the dim light when he stands on his toes and boldly takes Bucky’s waist with both hands to draw him in.

Held in close once more, their dance coming to an abrupt end, the tentative kiss from earlier naturally becomes complete. Bucky is still gentle but hungry, taking Steve’s own breath away by the mouthful. Steve grips Bucky at the waist, but Bucky’s hands sweep over Steve’s narrow shoulders, tug him into a full body press, and Steve moans Bucky’s name as his grip goes weak. He can’t hear the music anymore, just the rush of his own heartbeat in his ears, but Bucky still leads him as if to the beat until the backs of Steve’s knees hit the edge of the bed.

Steve freezes, a record scratch halting their slow, steady progress, and Bucky blinks quickly behind the stray locks of dark hair that fall in front of his eyes, like he regrets having been forced back down to earth.

Bucky drops his chin and pleads into the small space between them. “Stay with me tonight? I mean _really_ stay.”

Steve’s fingers have curled into the fabric of Bucky’s shirt, knuckles grazing the promise of muscle hidden beneath the layers, but he manages to tighten his grip when he considers what that means. Would it be possible? Could he just stay here? _Forever?_

No. The painting, the magic, whatever it is that summons him here would never allow it.

“...I can’t.”

“Then take me with you,” Bucky’s argument comes so quickly that he must have had it saved up, waiting for the right moment to confess how afraid he is, how he hasn’t found comfort or security in this war he claims to know so well. Steve fights off the helpless shiver that comes with the promise of future grief for them both.

“We have tonight,” Steve says, knowing at least that much is true, clinging to what’s left of this visit. “Let’s not waste it.”

Bucky kisses him again, and Steve abandons what little self-restraint he’d previously mustered, tugging Bucky down to the bed on top of him. Bucky goes easily, slotting on top of Steve, half his weight on a bent knee beside him, and pulling Steve’s arms up over his head in the process.

Pinned to the mattress, Steve chases Bucky’s mouth after he pulls away to breathe, and when Steve manages to lick past those trembling lips Bucky moans in response. The sound makes Steve squirm beneath him, heats Steve’s blood enough to make him pant. Bucky breaks the kiss again, this time so that he can latch his mouth onto Steve’s throat, then manages to drag open the zipper on Steve’s waterproof winter shell with one hand.

By the time Bucky is through the next layer, Steve is already aching for him, plucking at the buttons on Bucky’s waxed canvas trousers, feeling the heat of him between his knees as Bucky suckles at his left nipple. Everything between Bucky’s lips goes electric, triggering little sparks of pleasure up and down Steve’s spine as Bucky kisses and licks every bump and stretch of skin across Steve’s exposed chest.

Steve gasps and whimpers from the attention, then finally gets his hand around Bucky’s hard cock. “Mmm,” Bucky hums into the dip of Steve’s collar bone, warm breath tingling across spit slick skin. “Damn, Stevie. Fresh outta’ coconut oil.”

“S’fine like this,” Steve insists, guiding Bucky’s hot body against his own erection. The silky skin glides against Steve’s own cock, hot and throbbing a dribbling just enough precome to help. It’s Bucky’s turn to gasp, his hips thrusting eagerly forward to drink up the heat and he swears and gasps again.

“So good,” he whines. “Stevie. Fuck…”

Steve squirms, his knees wanting to go somewhere, but he can’t quite wrap them around the high arch of Bucky’s back. Bucky takes a hint and hooks an arm under one knee, folding it up towards Steve’s chest before going back to kissing, murmuring Steve’s name right into his mouth. Steve loves it, loves the feel of Bucky in his hand, the weight of it pressed against his own cock and the tight coil of dark hair that presses into the top of his fingers with every forward thrust.

Bucky’s tongue licks into Steve’s mouth, slick and hot and salty from Steve’s own body, from everything Bucky has greedily tasted since they first started their dance. Steve hums with satisfaction, loving the way Bucky devours him so hungrily, and pleasure continues to build in the pit of his stomach.

“More,” Steve pants, even though he’s not sure what he’s demanding. “Want more…”

Bucky seems to have his own ideas, slips down over Steve’s tingling body to leave him exposed before he drops to his knees between Steve’s thighs. “So beautiful,” he mutters, and swallows Steve’s cock whole.

“Fuck!” Steve grits out, and his toes curl at the hot, wet pull of Bucky’s mouth. He digs his fingers into Bucky’s scalp, tangling them into his thick hair, and props up on one elbow so he can watch his own cock glide in and out between kiss bruised lips. Sensing the attention, Bucky’s eyes flick up, glittering with mischief, and Steve can actually feel him smile around his cock, can feel his lips pull tight and his agile tongue swirl around the sensitive edge of his cockhead.

“Fu-ck…” Steve’s voice cracks, and he collapses onto his back, unable to watch Bucky without his balls exploding. “So close. _Stop!_ ”

Bucky stops, gently pulling off of Steve’s cock to avoid the shock and sudden loss of pressure. Still, Steve’s hips insist on one more feeble thrust under their own power. He grits his teeth, watching as Bucky takes his own cock in hand in a few, patient strokes while he waits. “You okay? Want me to stop?”

“No, no!” Steve insists in a harsh whisper. “Just so close. Don’t want- I don’t want to leave you behind.”

Bucky chuckles. “I won’t be all that far behind. You’re drivin’ me crazy, moaning like that... C’mon Stevie you can go off in my mouth. I never had anything sweet since the last time I had you.”

That cheesy one-liner should have made Steve want to clobber Bucky with a pillow, but the needy way Bucky asks, all husky and thick with desire, sends a rush of lust strait to the base of Steve’s dick. He takes the gentle grip he had in Bucky’s hair and uses it to shove his head right back down between his thighs.

Bucky gets to work, slurping greedily at Steve’s cock, moaning hotly through his nose into the blond curls at the base. One hand presses against the flat plane of Steve’s stomach, fingers spread wide, the other works between his legs, stroking every sensitive inch of puckered skin, smooth perineum, and the delicate folds of his aching balls. Bucky’s long fingers massage them against his own palm, and Steve can feel everything throbbing at the touch, pushing, pushing, pushing towards release.

“Bucky, Buck, I can’t- I’m gonna-”

“Mmm,” Bucky hums deeply, the vibration starting at the very tip of Steve’s cock where it touches the back of his throat, and bolting town the shaft where Bucky’s teeth ever-so-slightly graze the overstimulated flesh.

“ _Buck—!_ ” The orgasm hits Steve so hard his whole body clenches up around Bucky’s head, and his grip turns into a fist in Bucky’s hair. Bucky sharply inhales through his nose, but continues to suck Steve’s orgasm down, swallowing with every spasm, holding on for the ride. Steve’s muscles relax all at once, and he collapses back onto the mattress, spent.

Bucky gives his softening cock a few licks to tidy him up, breathing hard. “Was that okay?”

Steve wants to laugh, but only manages a few strained puffs of air from his belly. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Never done it before,” Bucky says with a smile so shy Steve holds his breath in surprise. Bucky prettily shrugs one bare shoulder when he notices Steve’s reaction. “Wasn’t sure, is all.”

“I love you,” Steve sighs, then nearly swallows his tongue.

Bucky’s eyes widen, but rather than laugh or turn away in horror, his cheeks turn bright red. He dips his head down and presses a shallow little kiss into Steve’s belly, and once again Steve feels the smile on Bucky’s warm lips.

“Oh, Steve. What are you doing to me?” He kisses Steve again, inhales deeply, and his hips roll as he moans softly, still hard and wanting. Steve’s clothes are slipping off at Bucky’s urging, slipping away like the precious little time they have left to enjoy this stolen moment. “I never felt… Didn’t even know…”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Steve quietly tells him, tugging at Bucky’s shirt, his pants, anything to get the rest of his clothes off. He hadn’t been planning on blurting out his heart after all, and certainly doesn’t hold Bucky accountable for saying it back. It should be odd that instead of embarrassment, Steve feels relief, happy enough to have just taken this opportunity to be honest. Who knows how many more they might have?

Steve pulls up Bucky’s chin so he can prove it by giving him a long, lingering kiss, and Bucky goes willingly, erection pressing into Steve’s pelvis along the way. “Mmm, sweetheart...” Bucky mouths the words into the kiss, and Steve reaches down between them, taking his still-throbbing cock in hand and giving it a loving stroke. Bucky tucks his chin into the side of Steve’s neck, his breath hot against him as his hips pick up Steve’s rhythm, pumping in and out of his gently closed fingers.

Naked, sliding against each other, the heat builds again. Bucky’s hair falls in front of his eyes, lank with sweat, and his chest glistens with it as he rocks into the delicious friction, moaning with each breath as his dog tags swing freely in the air, adding their own, quiet chiming. Steve watches with wide eyes, thinking that Bucky must be the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. That chin, those lips, the way his eyes crinkle in the corners when his face breaks into a smile, and when Bucky jerks forward suddenly his face goes up to the ceiling like he’s surfaced from some deep plunge, and he cries out in a wordless shout when threads of come streak across Steve’s belly, all the way up to his chest. Gorgeous, Steve thinks. No, not just gorgeous, but perfect. Bucky is _perfect_.

Steve is so in love he wants to say it again, but keeps it to himself this time, happy enough to watch as Bucky slowly relaxes, and melts into the mattress beside him, exhausted.


	31. London, England - March 10, 1945 - Orders is Orders

“No, no, no.” Steve yawns, presses his face back up against Bucky’s warm, smooth skin, and murmurs, “Cars are still around. Still just four wheels that touch the ground, though.” 

Bucky gives him a little nudge with the slightest flex of his elbow, and it’s just enough to jostle Steve back from the brink of sleep. They’ve been at this for over an hour, talking softly about a future Bucky now might live to actually see. Steve doesn’t mind too much, at a certain point it just feels like he’s drifted into a fantasy world he’s made up.

“And the underwater city?”

“Nah.” Steve has had to crush Bucky’s dreams on just about every exhibit from the World Exposition of Tomorrow, and Bucky lets out yet another disappointed sigh. “We did get to the moon though. Astronauts walked around on it. Planted an American flag.” Steve laughs. Out of all the things he’s talked about—the internet, Steve’s hearing aids, Obama—getting to the moon is actually not that far from this moment in time. “Russians were pissed.”

“Russians?” Bucky grumbles. “Guess they don’t last too long as our allies, huh? Knew it.”

Steve offers a noncommittal sound in response, like he has every time Bucky’s questions lead to historical subjects he’s not sure he should talk about. A few things on that list include the atomic bomb, JFK’s assassination, the World Trade Center attack, Mccarthyism, HIV, Nixon… Steve doesn’t exaggerate the finer points of living in the future, points out that suffering, disease, poverty all still exist, but why paint a detailed picture of the future’s worst brutality when there’s nothing to be done about it anyway? It’s all fun and games until you alter the timeline.

Bucky suddenly changes tracks, voice buoying up with more energy than Steve has. “What year is it actually for you?”

Steve has to blink a few times, trying to reset his sleepy brain in order to put together what Bucky's getting at. For some reason, rational thought seems to fall between his fingers like loose sand and he’s left feeling unsettled and confused. “What?”

“You know, like the time you’re supposed to be in.” Bucky continues stroking the back of Steve’s head, but he’s inched up the mattress to get a better look at Steve’s answer. Steve looks up at him, trying not to blink too widely in the dim light. “The future?”

“Oh.” Not the future. Steve’s _present_. The date doesn’t come to mind right away and Steve gets distracted by thinking of the cold, wet, rainy weather in his own time, but not much else. Did he somehow forget? Why is it so hard to keep the future in focus all of a sudden? _The present._ Steve shakes himself, hoping it’s just drowsiness that makes him so easily confused. “It’s 2016, where I come from. November. It’s only been a week since I’ve had the painting.”

Bucky doesn’t answer right away, probably thinking up a million questions about technology and entertainment and food all at once, or maybe digesting the fact that it’s been years for him and only days for Steve. “You said bein’, you know… queer an’ all. That’s something normal in 2016?”

Oh. This is a much harder conversation. “I wouldn’t say it like that,” Steve starts, trying to be careful but still honest. “‘Normal’ means all kinds of things depending on who you ask. I guess firstly, it’s decriminalized. It’s more socially acceptable, but there’s plenty of places it might never be… It’s still a personal choice, if people are open about it or not. Gay marriage is legal. Well, since 2015 at least. So yeah, you could have a wedding, adopt kids…” 

Steve trails off, wondering what Bucky’s silence means. Did Steve mention that the moon landing is only two dozen years away? And yet gay marriage is a whole seventy years away. It must seem so unfair, it’s no wonder Bucky doesn’t know what to do with that information. Still, he continues his slow nod, taking it in. “Yeah, alright. So it’s like most things. Some people are assholes about it. Least they don’t send you to the nut hut. Poor Arnie… Born too soon.”

“So were you,” Steve argues.

“Fuck. Knew that before I even met you.” Bucky flatly admits, then makes a small, bitter sound in the back of his throat. “I need a smoke.” 

Steve is wrapped around Bucky’s chest, under the quilt, still naked and hardly interested in getting up or dressed. He might be a little hungry, but that could wait. “Thought you were quitting,” he mumbles sleepily, kisses Bucky’s ribs where his face is pressed in close and lets his eyes slide closed again, just for a minute. He can’t fall asleep like this, he just can’t, but there’s no harm in relaxing until they get up and the hell away from this war.

“Thought quittin’ was less important than gettin’ through it,” Bucky counters with a snort, fidgeting just enough for Steve to figure out that he’s probably going to have to get up a hell of a lot sooner than he wants to.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Steve reasons. “You can just go home.” 

Something stills between them, like an entire ocean freezing over at once, and Steve pulls up on one elbow at the sudden shift of the room’s intimate atmosphere. Bucky isn’t looking at him, but instead regards his dog tags where they stick to his sweaty chest.

“Orders is orders,” Bucky says simply.

Steve cringes in confusion. “What do you mean? You’re not in the Army anymore. They can’t order you to-”

“The Howling Commandos is different than the Army,” Bucky admits, something going rigid in the way he speaks, and his hands go through his hair to try and get the loose locks from hanging in front of his eyes. “But we still got orders. Think I’d leave those guys on their own? Take some plummy free trip back home when they are _volunteering_ to chase that collaborator down? I can’t sit this one out. Not this time.” 

This time? What could Bucky possibly mean by that? Steve is angry when he finally understands. “You think you owe them your life, just because you weren’t able to dig out that salt mine?”

Bucky makes a clicking noise with his tongue, and shifts out from under Steve’s weight, leaving him in the bed as he gets up to dress. “Not just that,” he murmurs lamely, not committing to any further explanation.

“What then?” Steve says, not letting him get away with it. “Is it… is it because you were drafted?”

Bucky nearly drops his shirt, freezing for a beat before he finishes pulling it over his head. “Aw, hell, Steve. You don’t know anything about it.”

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, 107th Army Infantry Division, service number 32557038. Drafted February 1st, 1943,” Steve rattles off, making it damn clear he’s done his homework. “Only when I first met you, you were all fired up to volunteer. Then you-”

“What was I supposed to do?” Steve is cut off by Bucky’s shout. “They bombed Pearl Harbor!” 

Bucky kicks out the chair at his small desk, drops down in it so he can jam his foot in his boot. “They bombed Pearl Harbor and I was young and stupid and had no idea what it meant to go to war. I- They- I thought maybe they didn’t need me, once the newsreels started showing what it was really like. Had more fellas signing up than they could get uniforms for. War would be over in a week!” Bucky lets go of a bitter laugh, then starts to ramble, making little sense of things as he throws his blue jacket over his shoulders. “That creep dragged me up there every day. While men around me died. Good men. Ain’t right, what he did.”

The sudden shift in logic is alarming enough, but now Steve gets a sense that Bucky’s hands might be shaking because he’s desperate to escape. Steve or the hotel but not the war, as far as he can tell.

“Bucky…” Steve isn’t sure what to say, but he’s watching Bucky head for the door and panic blunts the edges of his courage. “You can’t be serious. Just stay! If you go on that train, you die!”

“Yeah?” Bucky spins around, jabbing a finger at the air in front of him, voice cracking like a whip. “How do you know?”

“Because the records—”

“Did the _records_ tell you that some skinny little punk from Brooklyn would come fuck everything up?” Bucky snaps, and Steve’s heart plummets into his stomach.

What happened? Bucky’s personality flipped like a switch, raw fury and fear instantly replacing his gentle kindness. Still, it’s the fact Bucky just attacked Steve with his size that goes right through him, and for the first time since he’s stumbled into this unreal dream, feels like the man in front of him is truly a stranger. Worse, Steve also feels ugly, and foolish for exposing his bony body to such a strong, _whole_ person like Bucky. He shivers, and closes his arms across his chest to smooth out the gooseflesh from his shoulders. 

“Stevie…” Bucky says, voice cracking right back up to bearable levels. When Steve looks up he finds Bucky wide-eyed, radiating pain and confusion like he’s just as surprised by his own outburst. He’s fully dressed now, unlit cigarette stuck to the corner of his mouth, but his jacket isn’t buckled up, and his belt remains hanging off the bedpost. “I didn’t mean…” 

“It’s fine,” Steve says, anything but fine, dropping his gaze because his eyes burn. “I get it. Orders is orders.”

“No, it’s just. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.” The floorboards beneath the rug squeak when Bucky shifts his weight. “Honest. I don’t know why… I’m sorry, Stevie.” 

Raging one second and now all sweetness and vulnerability? Bucky clearly can’t seem to manage exactly what he’s become. It’s not really him, Steve tells himself. It’s not really Bucky, just the PTSD taking hold and pushing the wrong buttons. How would Steve react if he was told he was going to die a few days after his birthday? But Steve still feels ugly and embarrassed and he’s angry now too. He doesn’t want to get dressed in front of Bucky and pulls the blankets up higher.

“Weren’t you going out?”

Bucky’s hand is on the little metal bolt on the door, but he doesn’t open it just yet. “Steve, I’m really sorry. I hope… will you still be here when I get back?”

Steve wants to be petty and tell him no, but where else would he go? He doesn’t actually even want to leave, just wants to retaliate against Bucky’s shitty comment. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t think I have much choice.”

Bucky hesitates, like he’s not sure if he should respond or just let Steve have that one. Wisely, he lets it go, and opens the door a crack. “You might want to bolt the door after I go,” he suggests. “The guys here got no problem barging in if they think I’m here. I mean, if they find you like-”

“I get it,” Steve bitterly interrupts. The men Bucky will die for couldn’t possibly find out about his skinny gay lover, tangled up in his hotel room sheets. How could Steve have thought for a second that he would ever want to stay in this time period? Bucky leaves the room and his heart breaks. Because he’s in love, he reminds himself. He’s in love and he’s an idiot.

Miserable, Steve drags himself out of bed and pulls his clothes back on. He’d come prepared with so much, and used so little, but figures it’s just as well. Who knows where it would have sent him if he’d come in his regular clothes. Steve sits down at the desk, glancing at the paperwork just to have something to do. He finds a photo of Arnim Zola, and it sets his teeth on edge.

It’s not the same one that Sam pulled from the archives with the help from the Monuments Men. That one had clearly been some kind of actual portrait when this captured a more candid gathering. A stern-faced man with the most severe widow’s peak Steve has ever seen stands behind Zola, grinning like a skull, and another man in a dark military uniform is seated on an opulent sofa in the background. Steve turns the photo over to see a scratch of pencil, identifying the grinning man as _Johann Schmidt_ and the seated figure as _Col. Vasily Karpov_ , along with the date marked down as _1938_.

“Holy shit…”

Steve pulls out his phone and takes a snapshot of the photo, hoping this one makes the trip back through time. Screw the red ledger. This is damning evidence if Steve’s ever seen, that there was German-Russian collusion with the Swiss company before the war. Steve sneers at the weasel-eyed Zola, grinning out of his jowly face. It looks a bit like a swollen balloon, bulging above a bow tie knotted just a bit too tightly. If this greedy Swiss bastard hadn’t tried to hide Hydra’s history in Bucky’s painting, then none of this would have happened.

What could Zola have possibly packed on the train that was worth Bucky’s life? Nothing. The answer is nothing. There is no sacred artwork in history as precious as Bucky’s life. He’d fight any stuffed-shirt historian or overpaid curator that tried to argue otherwise. Bucky himself is a key moment in history, a key figure in the war, representing the joy and freedom of a beautiful young gay man in an era that destroyed the lives of beautiful, young gay men. What painting could possibly capture that better than Bucky’s own living, breathing self?

Steve feels their earlier friction like a lance of pain, and has a hard time trying to reconcile the fact that he’s still so in love, and still so hurt. It sucks, because there should be an easy answer, and yet he is still here, still drawn first to Bucky and then away from him, being lead by the nose down the path towards the mystery of this fucking art heist. 

What is he missing? What is he going to do if he returns to his body in the present and Bucky is still nowhere to be found on the canvas? Pierce is closing in and Steve’s still miles away from solving the riddle, like the one in charge of this little scavenger hunt had spaced the clues just a little too far apart.

“Steve?” Bucky’s tentative voice drifts through the door, startling him out of his seat. “Can I come in?”

Right, the lock. Steve forgot to bolt it.

“It’s open,” Steve tells him, and glances away when Bucky slips back inside, bringing the faint scent of crisp, outdoor air and tobacco with him.

Bucky heads to the bed and yanks off his boots, actively trying not to look at him. Instead he stares at Steve’s backpack, resting against the desk leg, and asks, “You leavin’?”

“Just didn’t want to get caught with my pants down,” Steve murmurs. He’s still mad, but it’s the truth. He’d been a breath away from falling asleep and as far as he can tell that would have sent him back to his own time, stark naked and sticky from sex. He hadn’t gotten dressed just so he can bail out of an awkward conversation, although Bucky’s sheepish lack of an answer makes him wish he had. “Bucky, I think-”

“Steve, I know-”

They both start and stop at the same time, and Steve rests his hip on the edge of the desk, giving a resigned look back to Bucky where he seems to be contemplating the buttons on his blue jacket. Steve feels the heat of his own anger waver, watching Bucky struggle to understand a situation where for once he’s without a shred of his usual confidence. Steve winds up torn between letting Bucky take his time to gather his thoughts and saving him from having to speak at all. Finally, Bucky balls his hands into fists and looks up.

“I know what I said was wrong. I don’t actually think that way, and I don’t know why I said it. I think… I think I just wanted to say somethin’ hurtful, but I don’t- You’re not- Well, you _are_ skinny but I love it, love how you’re stronger than anyone I ever met, an’ I hate that for even a second you mighta’ thought… I just-” Bucky’s mouth seems to run away with him, so he stops himself and lets out an annoyed huff. “Fuck, this is hard.”

Steve lets himself laugh at least once over Bucky’s helpless scrambling. “I get it, Buck. What you’ve been through? I know there’s some things you can’t-”

“No, no,” Bucky denies it immediately, shaking his head, and the argument seems to have emboldened his resolve, confidence finally inching its way back in. “Don’t go makin’ excuses for me. A guy can’t decide to love his fella one minute and hurt him the next without being a special kinda bastard. I owe you a proper apology. So. I’m sorry Steve. Swear to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it’ll never happen again.”

Steve swallows down his real question, which would’ve been something along the lines of, _then why are you insisting on going off on this fucking mission to die?_ Instead, he lets Bucky’s words settle in his chest where his heart beats a little too hard to ignore. “So. I’m your fella, huh?”

Bucky throws a pillow at him, and just as Steve laughs and dodges to the side, the whole building erupts beneath his feet. The floorboards surge upward, like the foundation had taken a startled gasp, and Steve has the strangest sensation of weightlessness, the moment slowing down to a syrupy crawl as shock extends time while he’s in the air. The window behind Bucky shatters, Bucky himself dives off the bed, the dim little gas lamp on the sideboard topples over, its glass chimney shattering on the rug and a woof of flames leaping up and dying out in an instant.

An impossible screeching noise rips through Steve’s hearing aids, and gravity returns with a vengeance. Steve hits the floor so hard it feels like he’s been slammed down by a giant, invisible fist, driving all the air out of his body at once as roaring fills his ears, and everything speeds up faster than he can process. He and Bucky both scramble out of the door, then stumble down a crumbling hall, run into Jones and Dernier in the hallway as the high whine of air-raid sirens belatedly start their cry upwards at the German bombers. 

Then suddenly Steve is alone with Jones, stumbling through billowing dust and smoke, dragging revelers from downstairs out from under splintered tables. Dum Dum is there, but then Steve hops over the bar to dig out the same boy he recognizes from earlier, still clutching his dingy gray rag he’d used to swipe spilled beer off the counters, and Dum Dum is gone again. 

Once outside, Steve sets the kid against a wall that’s still standing, and gulps when he sees the blood soaking through his trouser legs. “What’s your name?” Steve presses the kid, but he can’t seem to manage much beyond some tearful whimpering as Steve wraps a quikclot gauze around his lacerated calf. Despite all that confusion, Steve had managed to grab his backpack, and all the supplies he’d so casually written off are suddenly urgently needed.

“Steve!” Dum Dum shouts, re-emerging from the billowing smoke. He’s in his shirt and suspenders, even his felted bowler cap, but his jacket is gone, leaving him to cut an almost comical figure in the moment. “There’s a shelter a few blocks North! We’ll get as many as we can!”

The shelling continues as they run back in and out of the Whip & Fiddle, Steve hardly taking a moment to breathe, let alone notice the bodies scattered in the debris with nothing left in their open, glassy eyes that register as a person in need of help. It’s weird to notice them enough to leap over their crumpled limbs, yet not register them as actual dead bodies while Steve darts in and out, over and over again. He catches a few glimpses of the Howling Commandos as they tear through the debris, but they don’t stay still for long. No longer soldiers, no longer responsible for defending civilians, and yet this is just who they are. Willing to dive into a fire to save strangers, willing to take dangerous missions to save the world’s most precious art. Steve is so selfish, knowing that deep down, all he seems to really care about is Bucky. Where is he? Steve hasn’t seen him since… when? They reached the bottom of the stairs?

Air-raid sirens continue to drown out any possible cries for help, the terrifying buzz of planes overhead rising to the top of mounting panic as Steve falls in with a woman and the young boy from the bar, helping them limp northward, towards the promised shelter. One of the walls is missing entirely, but the building thankfully doesn’t collapse while they stumble over shattered pavers and around slower civilians, fleeing the bombardment as the night lights up with fire and screaming artillery.

Steve recognizes the _chut-chut-chut_ of anti-aircraft guns only one block over, opposite their current course. He spots an extremely sooty Falsworth helping Maddy up—the woman Steve found last in the Whip  & Fiddle—as Steve fumbles for a stronger grip on the barman’s helper, who still hasn’t managed to mutter out a name since Steve’d dug him out.

Something—a boiler or a gas line—catches in the heat from the bomb’s raging fire, and a stone building bursts like a balloon at the end of the street. The noise roars through his ears, buzzing his hearing aids, and the barman’s helper stumbles again.

Steve shouts as loud as he can at Falsworth, nearly unable to hear his own voice. “Have you seen Bucky?” 

“What?” Falsworth cries in response.

“Bucky!” Steve yells again. “Where is he?” 

“Haven’t seen him!” Falsworth says, or at least Steve reads the words on his lips. Steve can hear almost nothing over the feedback clawing into his left ear from his hearing aids, after the sensitive devices’ over-exposure to the high pressure explosion.


	32. London, England - March 10, 1945 - The Reason

The bomb shelter turns out to be a converted subway tunnel, silvery tracks left to slice into the pitch blackness beyond the platform. Falsworth made it, along with Jones and Dernier, but Steve hasn’t seen Dum Dum, Bucky or Morita since the Whip & Fiddle. Together, they try to organize the civilians underground, and stay out of the way of the brown-clad soldiers that shove their way to the surface.

It’s freezing, damp, and dust shakes free from the cracks between the stonework as great big _booms_ continue to roll like thunder overhead. Steve wonders what good soldiers do when the Germans are in fighter planes, but maybe it’s the civilians out there they protect on the homefront.

“How long does this last?” Steve whispers like everyone else, as if they were hiding from a great big beast on the surface that could hear them through the pavers. Jones looks up from his map, just as another _boom_ rattles a few bricks loose, followed by a great cracka- _thoom_ of a building collapse. It sounds like the world is ending up above, and Steve swallows down that fear, knowing for a fact it isn’t. “Does it go on all night?” 

“Sometimes,” Jones says. “They haven’t kept it up too long lately. Brits give ‘em hell, more often than not.”

“Too right,” Falsworth cheers, clapping Dernier on the shoulder. “Know a thing or two about that, eh Frenchie?” 

Dernier rolls his eyes. He speaks some English these days, but has always known when he’s getting ribbed by the ex-British Army officer. 

“Is it safe to go up yet?” Steve asks. He’s still pacing, while the others have settled in on a stack of empty packing crates. There’s hundreds of people down here by now, but Steve’s been watching the door, and neither Dum Dum nor Bucky has shown up yet. Even though Steve can feel the vibration in his gut, can see the electric lights overhead flicker on impact, his hearing aids aren’t picking up enough detail in the low-frequency blasts for him to tell if the bombing is getting closer to their location. He hopes the Germans are in retreat already. “Has the bombing moved further off?”

“They won’t let us out until the all clear sounds,” Morita explains, then glances off to where an old man has started whimpering, almost like a child. 

“We have to do something,” Steve says. “We can’t just sit here…”

“Anyone have any first aid?” Morita asks, and kneels down next to the elderly man to inspect a badly broken wrist.

Of course. Steve has a brand new first aid kit, mostly untouched. His adrenaline has been at a constant spike for so long he’s forgotten he’s surrounded by people who need help, even after making it into the shelter. Once again, Steve’s been distracted, thinking of no one else but Bucky, so he may as well help make up for it.

Steve works his way through the crowd, using up every bandage, antiseptic packet, and painkiller from his pack. Luckily, not too many people are hurt, but the ones that are have ugly wounds from broken glass and falling debris. When a small, skinny child turns out to be a whole fourteen years old, Steve realizes that everyone is hungry— _starving_ —and all his energy bars are quickly gobbled down by the children who ask. It doesn’t take long for people to start calling him medic, summoning him over to the more quiet cases that hadn’t spoken up in his first pass. He’s shorter than even some of the children, huddled under blankets yanked hastily off their beds, but his blue helmet stands out in the darkness, and so far the real medics are nowhere to be seen.

Steve doesn’t know a lot of first aid, not much more than ensuring things are clean and elevated, but it’s enough to keep him busy as he tries to avoid worrying. Bucky’s gun is still in its holster on whatever remains of the bedpost, as far as Steve knows, meaning he’s out there unarmed. Does it matter? There shouldn’t be any German soldiers in the streets, not like in Austria. Someone—a woman in an elegant fur coat and sloppily laced men’s boots—finds him and takes him to her wheezing mother-in-law, and Steve pushes the fear into the bottom of his gut and roots around in his pockets for his inhaler. 

Bucky and Dum Dum eventually turn up, along with a unit of soldiers that come to give the civilians a cry of all clear. Immediately, the atmosphere around them lifts, people laughing in relief, and slowly gathering what little they brought with them to find out whether or not their homes are still standing. The jerk just laughs when Steve, Jones, Dernier, and Morita come running up, and punches Dum Dum in the shoulder while he blames the older man for being late and missing the shelter closing. 

“Got distracted chasing a skirt, half a mile the wrong direction,” Bucky says, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. They’re still underground, waiting in a recessed area near the stairs that might have been a ticket stand once as the rest of the civilians file out. “Turned out it was a frightened donkey caught up in a poncho. A donkey! In London!”

“Sarge’s just covering. He’s proud to be the only jackass here.” Dum Dum snorts out loud, laughing at his own joke, but Steve doesn’t think it’s funny at all. Bucky’s pants are badly torn, his jacket dusted with so much plaster he could have crawled through a construction site, and a streak of fresh blood is smeared down the side of his face, so yes, isn’t it just _hilarious_ that Bucky and Dum Dum were locked out of the nearest bomb shelter. Steve marches right up to Bucky to tell him so, but then someone grabs hold of his hand, mid-huff. 

“Thank you,” the woman in the fur coat says, pressing her warm lips on the tops of his filthy hands in a quick series of kisses. “Thank you.” Steve is so stunned, he forgets his anger in an instant. A few more people wave their thanks as they pass by, children smiling with remnants of protein bars stuck to their faces, and the elderly man he’d helped first keeps the disposable ice pack pressed to his wrist, over the makeshift splint Steve fashioned from a broken crate and an ace bandage. Steve did that. Steve helped these people, made a real difference, small as he is.

“Not bad,” Bucky says, after the last thanks he gets, this one from a little girl wearing her own metal helmet, significantly battered and rusted but proudly bouncing along as she marches up the stairs. Bucky nudges Steve with his elbow, and smiles. “Even for a skinny little punk from Brooklyn.”

Steve clicks his tongue and nudges him back, but Bucky’s gentle teasing makes his face heat, and the fight goes out of him. “Jerk.”

The slow trudge back to the Whip & Fiddle takes a hell of a lot longer than their mad sprint to the bomb shelter. The street lamps are long gone, leaving Steve and Morita to lead the way with flashlights in the few stretches they travel between the red glow of burning buildings. There’s so much rubble in the streets that they wind up climbing over collapsed walls and crushed cars, and at one point stop to help a fire brigade toss buckets of scummy water into a house not yet entirely consumed by flames. They stop three more times along the way, and are so exhausted by the time they finally round the familiar street that it doesn’t quite register that the charred remains of the pub they’re looking at is what’s left of the Whip & Fiddle itself. 

“Poor old girl,” Falsworth sighs, and Jones sits heavily on a pile of bricks stacked so neatly they might have once been a chimney. Apparently, the upper storeys caught flame sometime after they had already evacuated, and even though the building’s sturdy walls are somewhat standing, nothing remains in the blackened matchsticks of the rooms above.

“All our records were in there,” Bucky groans. “Our maps, orders. Hell, even my damn gun.” 

Steve pulls off his pack. “Not all your records.” 

Once he started digging around for supplies, he came across the photo that he managed to shove in his pack on his frantic escape from the building after the first volley went off around them. He finds it again quickly, and passes it to Bucky. “That’s Johann Schmidt. Arnim Zola,” Steve points out. “And Vasily Karpov, a Corporal in the Red Army. These men have their own alliance. They are the ones funneling the artwork out of Europe through Switzerland, and into Russia. The Nazis capture it from Europe, the Swiss give it safe passage through their neutral country, the Russians wind up with it, storing it in a bunker in Siberia. This is proof, right here.” 

“Hot damn,” Dum Dum says, tilting the brim of his bowler off his brow to swipe sweat from his forehead.

“We had no idea it was that organized,” Falsworth says. “Switzerland? No wonder the trail went dead at Arnim Zola. Our lot never would have gone in after them.” 

“I thought he was just another German,” Bucky says through gritted teeth, and Steve knows he’s thinking about the number of times Zola had called him by name to sit for him, talked to him in English about his beautiful eyes, or the shapely lines of his figure, and never put together that the man’s accent isn’t German at all.

“They’re using this artwork to fund an empire,” Steve explains. “They’re using the war as cover to launder cultural property out of the hands of their rightful owners. Once it winds up in Russia, we won’t see it again for-” Steve glances at Bucky, catches his eye just long enough to connect. “For seventy years.” 

“This changes everything. Should we tell the Army?” Jones asks. “Colonel Phillips?” 

“No,” Bucky says. “No, we shouldn’t. The implications of a Swiss company operating like this… it’s the last place on Earth that isn’t up to its neck in this war, it doesn’t need to get pulled in now. This guy Zola, he’s clearly acting on his own. We get his train, we get the artwork, we get him. Then this guy Schmidt and Russia too will have something to answer for, but that ain’t our problem. For us, nothing changes.”

This time it’s Bucky that sends Steve a knowing look, and Steve lets go of all the tension holding him up. He sits right on top of a pile of rubble, exhausted, and stays there as the others make plans for where to head next. This is it. There’s no convincing Bucky to run at this point. Steve had figured he’d still be able to, figured they could talk through it once the literal dust had settled and Bucky could be on the next boat home. After this, after knowing what it’s like to be a part of it, hating every second of the heart pounding horror, but being able to make a real difference… 

Steve knows he’ll never persuade Bucky to take his free ticket home. Bucky started this war as a drafted sergeant, and now he’ll finish it as a volunteer Howling Commando. What that ultimately means now, since Steve has been here to warn him, will hopefully be the difference between him dying on the train, and coming home to live his life. Either way, Steve won’t ever see Bucky again. 

The sun breaks through London’s dreary morning fog, dawn making a meagre attempt at warming the war-torn city, and Steve feels an odd sort of peace settle over him. He’s glad he’s had this chance to save him, had a chance to set the record straight about Zola, glad he’d given that kid a protein bar and that old man a bandage and hell, glad he’d helped those prisoners escape Krausberg. His only regret now, watching the early morning sun take to Bucky the way a stage light takes to the star of a show, is that still he can’t be there for him. Not a soldier by his side, not his ‘fella’ Bucky can write home to. Surrounded by their allies, exhausted, miserable, and temporarily homeless, there’s no way for him to tell Bucky that this is the end of the line. 

Steve stays quiet as they regroup and march towards the closest outpost. Bucky catches his eye here and there, falls into step next to him, even slings his arm across Steve’s shoulders and begs to be carried at one point, because he’s just “So sick of walking”. Steve laughs at his teasing with the others and doesn’t break character, complains with the rest of them when they recieve stale K-rations and water from the small American waystation set up in an evacuated library, and collapses in a heap with them in a large field tent set up between two listing buildings. The ground is made up of dirt, framed by stone, signs that it used to be an address before the war turned it into an alley.

Bucky trades his four-pack of cigarette rations with Morita for a chocolate bar that he shares with Steve, and Steve sits on a bunk, side by side with him, nibbling at the bitter, dark corners of it. Steve is still strapped into his pack, and only hopes Bucky doesn’t mention it. 

“You’ve been quiet,” Bucky says, after glancing over at the Howlies, most of whom are fast asleep. Jones is several bunks over, scribbling out a letter with pen and paper he begged off a tired looking secretary, and not paying them any attention. When Bucky follows Steve’s glance Jones’ way, he bumps against Steve’s shoulder with his own. “Writing home to his ma. I should do the same, but I stopped figuring out what to say long time ago.” 

Steve thinks about his own mom, what he might put in a letter if he could still tell her something. Although, he did in fact see her in the last days of her life, slowly eaten away by the combined forces of chemo and cancer. Steve’d quickly discovered that it’s hard to find new ways to tell a person you love them when you know they are slipping through your fingers, and now it’s a painful reminder that it’s happening again. “I don’t think I’m coming back.” 

Bucky’s voice catches, a sound of pain quickly bubbling up before he can fully snuff it out. Finally, Bucky manages a full throated swallow. “Why?”

“The painting is being taken back.”

“I thought it was at the museum,” Bucky says, then frowns. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“It’s owned by Shield’s, which is owned by Hydra Holdings, which is founded by Johann Schmidt, brokered by Zola and hidden by Karpov. I can’t stop them from taking the painting back. I’m just a restorer, Buck. The painting came to me to repair.”

“Shit…” Bucky spits out, and takes a vengeful bite of his chocolate. He savors the treat for a few seconds, but still doesn’t seem to know what to do with that information. “Shit.”

“I think I go back when I fall asleep,” Steve says. “But when I do, I can bring this photo with me. It’s the proof we’d need to expose Shield’s history. To prove the provenance of a huge hoard of art they just discovered in Siberia. Maybe, if you find the red ledger… Well, at least we can do this much.”

As he explains what he thinks is a silver lining, Bucky’s smile grows weaker and weaker. “Stevie. Seventy years…”

Bucky isn’t the kind of guy that would say it, but Steve knows what he’s thinking. In seventy years, everyone involved in this whole effort will be dead, without seeing justice done. Without seeing Steve again.

“Time travel. You don’t even have flying cars, but you can time travel.” Bucky laughs, taking Steve off guard. “Okay, Steve Rogers of the Twenty-First Century. In seventy years, I guess I’ll see you again, one way or another.”

Steve bites down his own bottom lip to hold in the sudden sob, bites down even harder when he has to gulp to keep it in check. It’s not fair. Bucky puts his arm around him, and pulls him into the heat of his side, and Steve miserably finishes his chocolate in that warm embrace. It’s not fair. Why’d he been sent here just for this photo? Isn’t the red ledger important? Isn’t _Bucky_?

Steve sinks into the exhaustion of the night’s blitzkrieg, then jerks up, worried he’s going to fall asleep. If he sleeps, that’ll be it. If he sleeps, Bucky will be gone forever.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Bucky says softly, and the mattress shifts under Steve as he spreads out, limbs leaden and head heavy, despite the uncomfortable lump of his pack digging into his back. Where is his helmet? “I’ll watch you go.”

Watch him go? What does that mean? Why—

—Steve’s neck is so stiff he groans right into his pillow before he moves a muscle, then groans again when he realizes he’s face down on the floor.

“Oh, so you’re alive?” 

“Mnnff?” Steve says, unable to place exactly where the strange voice is coming from.

“Hey. You’re that kid that works in oils, right? Steve?”

“Twenty- _seven_ ,” Steve growls, finally dragging himself up. Where is he? Did he fall asleep in his lab again? No, they’d moved to the arms and armor restoration lab-slash-workshop to keep the painting out of Pierce’s hands. Steve blinks several times before he realizes a stranger is standing above him. “Who are you?”

The man puffs through his teeth. “Are you kidding? We’ve been working together for almost a year.”

Steve squints. “I have no idea who you are.”

“Rude. Although I guess you never really come out of that cave of yours,” the man retorts, while looking off to the side as if he prefers to have this conversation with no one in particular. “Speaking of which. Care to tell me why you’re set up in my workshop on a Saturday? Or should I guess that young people are into way stronger shit than I was at your age?”

His workshop? “You’re Tony Stark.”

“We’ve met at least four times.” 

Steve grunts and finishes picking himself off the floor. What happened? Did he let his blood sugar get too low again? He really should stop skipping meals. Wait- 

“Saturday? I was here overnight?”

Tony shrugs and picks up Steve’s paint palette, left on the floor by a table leg. “Did… you seriously use a thirteenth century helmet plume mount for your paint?”

“What?” Steve is fully awake now, stumbling to Tony’s side where he’s holding the broken piece of wood, covered in the autumnal shades of-

The painting. _Bucky!_

Steve whirls around to check his own work, and finds Bucky’s form restored to the canvas. Alive! Bucky must have survived! Steve’s smile doesn’t last long. The figure in the painting is dressed in rags, hollow bones protruding from the ripped cloth. Bucky’s hair is nearly down to his shoulders, hanging in a greasy curtain. Only one, blue eye is visible through the part and he’s wearing something over his nose and mouth, obscuring the rest of his face. Through the x-rays Steve had thought it might have been a beard, but now he can see it’s some kind of muzzle, like you’d put on a dangerous mental patient in a Victorian-gothic asylum, or a horror film.

“Cheerful stuff,” Tony says from over Steve’s shoulder. “Looks like a POW. You finished with this? I’d like to save my priceless artifact now.”

“Who keeps priceless artifacts in a bucket of scraps, anyway...” Steve grumbles, handing over the paint palette. As far as he can tell, he’s finished with this restoration project.

“Who breaks into someone else’s workshop to throw paint around?” Tony shoots back. “Figured your lab would be better set up for that kind of work. The air conditioning break or something?”

“No,” Steve says, not trusting Tony with the real reason. Hiding the painting from Alexander Pierce until… Until what, exactly? Steve’s having a hard time remembering why he’d been so desperate to finish this piece before Pierce reclaimed it for Shield’s, knowing their shady origins and unclear motives.

Something about the red ledger? There it is, still in the bicycle pannier. Steve squints back at the Winter Soldier himself, thinking there was more to it than that.

 _Bucky_ —the soldier’s name is _Bucky_. He loves him! How could he forget that?

“Hey. Buddy. You okay?” Tony’s voice barely reaches Steve through his hearing aids.

His heart is beating so fast he gasps, trying to catch his breath and bracing himself on the nearby workbench. There’s a crushing pain there, somewhere in his panic, that feels like anguish and fear and loss. Like when his mom died, only without the deep dark secret sense of relief.

Why? Because he’s forgotten something, something important. He can taste it on his lips, can hear a soft voice, see a brilliant smile. Bucky, he’s forgetting Bucky. It’s slipping away, drifting apart like a mirage he’s mistakenly approached, his time in the war, by Bucky’s side. It’s nothing but a fantasy, a dream, feeling the love of someone so close to real, and yet…

“Hey! Do you want me to call someone? Rogers!”

Steve shakes himself, lets go of a great sigh, and blinks a few times to clear his head. “Yeah! Sorry, I think I overdid it.” Steve gets a look at the other man, glaring at him. He’s wearing a black undershirt and sweatpants, which clash with a very, very expensive watch. Steve doesn’t remember meeting Tony Stark personally, but manages to recall stories of the most eccentric member of the restoration team. Apparently, he’s some kind of independently wealthy playboy, who apparently pays the museum in order to work on the arms and armor collection. His immaculately sharp goatee frames a frown so deep, he clearly thinks Steve is full of shit.

“Mm hm,” Tony says, unimpressed. “So why are you crying?”

“What?” Steve swipes at his face, and his hand comes away filthy, streaked with salty tears. Is he really that upset? Over the painting? Steve glances back at it, disappointed he hadn’t found anything else in the layers of glaze and oils to help Peggy prove Shield’s complicity in war time art theft. _The Winter Soldier_ looks miserably pallid, sick and maybe dying. No wonder the artist painted this subject over with a happier, healthier character. Still, nothing he should weep over and Steve is mystified by his own reaction when he answers. “I have no idea.”


	33. Coming Undone

Steve sticks his pinkie in his left ear and nudges the in-ear-canal hearing aid, hoping it might finally stop rubbing in just the wrong way. He’s only had them for a week, a Christmas gift from Peggy, after his behind-the-ear aids were somehow damaged the night he’d fallen asleep on the floor in one restoration labs. It’d taken a bit to get this new pair tuned properly after he’d been using behind-the-ear aids for so long, but overall they’ve been so much more manageable. His ears pop when he opens his mouth to stretch his jaw, tilts his head to the side, and—there it goes! Much more comfortable now. 

Steve badges through the staff entrance, trots downstairs, and passes by the break room with a quick wave to Luis. The security guard is in a heated debate with Dave and Kurt, apparently picking apart the contributions of Anish Kapoor to the art world during their mid-morning break. Steve doesn’t want to get involved in yet another Vantablack versus Pinkest Pink screaming match (because, obviously, Pinkest Pink makes the strongest statement, and Steve will fight anyone who says otherwise.) Soon enough, Steve is back in his lab, looking forward to finally getting his hands dirty, starting with that fake Bouguereau. After Shield’s had reclaimed _The Winter Soldier_ , Steve’s prolonged bedrest, and the holidays, he’s only now returning to his beloved lab, his paints and solvents and restrainers and all the work waiting to be restored to former glory. 

Monsieur La Rochelle has finally approved his restoration plan to fix the crumbling patch on _Crown II_ , despite the bad news of it being a copy. Apparently, the man still found it valuable enough to pay the Met’s exorbitant fee to restore it, even though Peggy offered to refund him. 

At first, Steve’d thought it was offensive to even allow the forgery in his lab to begin with, but something happened in between discovering the inconsistencies in the work and the end of the drama surrounding _The Winter Soldier_ , and Steve finds he doesn’t actually take La Rochelle’s sentimentality all that personally. It’s kind of sweet that the man is so doting on a picture he just happens to like, despite the tasteless signature of the forger, hidden beneath.

Steve hopes to get it done before the end of the week, depending on how much rust he has to shake off after the long break. He had been so anxious while on his month-long sabbatical that he’d picked up a sketchbook and managed to fill up the pages with character studies and sketches of random Brooklyn architecture near his studio apartment. There’s nothing fancy about it, just a few scratches with charcoal, but it helped tide him over for the New Year and his old job.

He tosses his messenger bag onto his desk and gets to work, preparing his materials, removing the canvas from the stretcher, applying the protective tissue with non-reactive glue. This is the part that doesn’t involve much artistry, just the technical conservation of the painting as it is, before restoring the work to what it’s supposed to be. Steve usually loves this part, the way he can simultaneously protect and break down a piece of cultural property to its component parts, separately polishing every aspect until it shines and watching it all come back together again. Steve has never needed much more than that, feels the connection with the work, the artist, and the point in history so strongly through each piece that he’s privileged to handle, that he can’t imagine any stronger satisfaction. 

Still, over the course of the next three days, all the way until he’s applying the final layer of varnish, he finds himself spacing out, uncharacteristically bored. It’d hardly been a challenge, despite the tricky, crumbling gesso patch, and he manages to finish the entire restoration in record time. He’s satisfied with his work, and so was La Rochelle, but something inside him seems to have lost touch with what used to be so thrilling about this kind of work. Maybe it’d just been the painting itself, a replica he’d never really bonded with despite being charmed by La Rochelle’s loyalty to it.

After the painting is crated up and sent back to France, Peggy insists that Steve the rest of the day off. He walks home in the late morning, wondering if _The Winter Soldier_ had just been a bit too exciting to easily return to mundane projects like _Crown II_. Pierce had been properly annoyed by Peggy’s wild goose chase, but once he’d had the painting in hand, been happy with the results. He’d appreciated the ‘candid misery’ that the artist had managed to capture of a Soviet prisoner, and had spewed all kinds of other pretentious bullshit about a painting he clearly no longer cares about now that the rest of Lukin’s vault in Russia has been released to Shield’s gilded clutches. 

Major Wilson from the New York State Military History Museum had also left Steve a message, confirming that James Buchanan Barnes is listed as assumed-KIA after a train accident, having found no contradicting stories from the Monuments Men’s archives. When Steve asks Sam to clarify what ‘assumed-KIA’ means, Sam tells him that after one year, every MIA is switched to KIA. Barnes’ body had never been recovered. Being dead was less complicated for the Monuments Men than being missing in a country the Allied Forces weren’t meant to be.

Steve had watched _The Winter Soldier_ vanish in Shield’s private truck, crated up by Brock & Jock one last time, along with the hard drive containing the digital archives that Steve had captured for their records. He’s not sure what compelled him to watch, but the whole thing left him feeling strangely dead inside. He’d probably just got a little too attached to the painting, a little too obsessed with the mystique of handling a kind of war-era ‘whodunnit’. At the end of the day, _The Winter Soldier_ had been just another job, and they’re all lucky it’d gone so well. Peggy had been disappointed, but not angry with Steve for finding nothing else about Arnim Zola in the earliest version of the work. 

It’d been a risk that resulted in a zero sum: Shield’s continuing on to profit off of what was surely plundered art, and Steve and the Museum protected from any action against them. It’s no wonder he’s bored by the restoration of a repro. _Crown II_ just isn’t enough of a challenge for him after going through all that. 

A great _boom!_ thunders across the street, and Steve leaps about three feet straight up before he ducks, worried about bricks coming down on his head. It takes a few seconds of confusion for it to sink in that nothing is happening. A garbage truck backs out of the alley where it’d just dropped a huge, steel dumpster—probably the booming noise he’d heard—and Steve catches his breath. 

He’s been jumpy lately, every sudden noise a gunshot to his overactive imagination, every car alarm an air-raid siren. Even now, his heart races and his palms sweat as adrenaline rushes through his veins, insisting he’s only just evaded death. He already knows he got a little obsessed about the painting, immersing himself in hours of research and making off site visits to museums that had lead to nothing more than nightmares about dark, cavernous dungeons and burning buildings. It doesn’t make much sense that it seems to be getting worse, so long after the painting had been taken off his hands.

Recently, machine gun fire and the telltale whine of aircraft have started sneaking into his dreams, shuttering out the screams for help from lines of grim men tumbling down narrow, stone stairways. Sometimes, James Buchanan Barnes, the model for _The Winter Soldier_ himself shows up, always looking to Steve for help. Whenever that happens, the nightmares turn desperate, and Barnes always winds up just out of Steve’s reach: over a cliff, down a hole, caught in a blast, or buried under red, dusty bricks. 

That night, Steve has a nightmare of slowly drowning in that inescapably familiar dungeon. This time, men in dark uniforms and shiny boots speak to him in German, sneering at the pathetic way he thrashes desperately against the water as it slowly freezes, ice crawling across his skin inch by painful inch while he slips into the darkness. Steve doesn’t talk about it, but after that he starts to sleep with a fresh towel nearby for the times he wakes up swimming in his own sweat.

The following week, Steve winds up struggling to care about the Vermeer—another honest to god _Vermeer_ —that is graciously on loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Met is conducting a new study to track the routes of component parts of pigments used throughout history, ultimately to showcase the interconnectivity of art with travel, trade and civilization as a whole. _Woman in Blue Reading a Letter_ is a masterpiece that most conservators would only dream of handling, and the world’s leading restorers wouldn’t dream of touching at all. At first Steve is ecstatic to be selected for the project, proud that his previous work on one Vermeer—however, small—has been acknowledged. He looks forward to carefully analyzing the brilliant ultramarine derived from precious lapis lazuli, and reads through several reference articles on the pigment as a warm up as he awaits the painting’s arrival from the Netherlands. For this kind of work, there’s no need for handling brushes or mixing his own palette, no need to reinterpret losses with his own touch. It’s a science project, pure research, to carefully handle and catalogue work in order to preserve it for future generations, even while uncovering new details about an old masterpiece. 

Steve uses a spectrometer and microscope and yawns every few minutes for three whole days, then turns in his report with only the slightest sense of accomplishment. 

It can’t be that he’s bored. Instead he blames his sleepless nights, the constant flood of horrible dreams, and irrational sense of loss every time he finds himself alone in bed. He thinks about the red ledger a lot, about Shield’s getting away with an age-old war crime, about how it’s his fault he couldn’t stop it. He thinks about Pierce’s smarmy attitude and _The Winter Soldier_ ’s misery in that last and original layer of oils. He thinks about Phil Coulson, whose disappearance seems to have been conveniently forgotten by everyone except for Peggy and her intrepid niece. 

When Luis points out the dark circles under his eyes, Steve blames his neighbors for making too much noise in the middle of the night. In reality, the compressor on his refrigerator makes the exact same sound as the pin being pulled from a grenade, and he finds it disturbing he’d even know what that sounds like to begin with. Every night he has to jump out of bed, heart in his throat and gut churning with fear, until he finally learns his lesson and and unplugs the thing when he heads off to sleep. He’s not used to lying, but he hardly knows how to explain the thing about the grenade sound to the security guard.

After a month of this, Peggy is the one who suggests Steve take a vacation and he blocks off the first week of March. He has no idea what to do with himself, but when his first day off actually arrives, he empties out a backpack he never remembered owning, thinking he may as well go hiking up at Pelham Bay. At least, hiking seems like the sort of thing people do on vacation, and for some reason he has about a thousand dollars worth of hiking equipment he’s never used. As he digs, Steve uncovers a practically empty first aid kit, an empty water canteen, packets of iodine tablets, space blankets and a poncho, steve finds some crumpled up protein bar wrappers, a multitool, and a headlamp. All of it turns out to be used after all, yet he can’t imagine when or where. 

“So random…” he mumbles, and turns the pack over to shake out the rest of the garbage. From one of the narrow slotted pockets, probably meant for maps, a thick notecard comes tumbling out and slides across the floor before he manages to pounce on it. Light pencil in a fine, cursive script reads: _Johann Schmidt, Arnim Zola, & Col. Vasily Karpov -1938._

Steve blinks, turns it over to find a photograph of the three men, lounging around what looks like a comfortable afternoon tea. He’s never seen this photo before, and yet… 

“How...?” Steve asks no one in particular and turns the photo over a few times, back and forth, just to be sure, then glares at his backpack, as if it were to blame for the sudden, confusing appearance. It’s not just the backpack though, and Steve gets a sense that something is wrong. Something had happened to him, and he can’t believe it has to do with dreams or his bad habit of neglecting calories anymore. Something inside him hurts, the same way a muscle in his neck might hurt if he sleeps on it funny, evidence of doing something traumatic even if he can’t remember. Grey mist floats on the edge of his memory, a mirage, an imprint of something he’s supposed to know, fingers reaching toward him. 

Steve swallows against thoughts of panic and fire and the pain of bloody knees and ringing ears, but also adrenaline and pride and an immense sense of purpose all at once, and he takes a breath and then another, letting the snarl of sensations bleed away, leaving nothing but a sense of loss behind. Steve stares at the photo again, and questions everything.

Is Steve’s purpose still to rescue other peoples’ paintings? When he couldn’t even rescue _The Winter Soldier_ from Pierce’s clutches? Steve leaves the camping junk on his floor where he’s tossed his pack, and grabs his laptop. He VPNs into the Met’s network, and starts clicking through his own, meticulously crafted directories to find the project file for the painting. He uses the timestamps to quickly search through the dozens of archival images. The earliest is the first, untouched painting, straight out of the ice, the jaunty soldier with his lit cigarette, the setting behind him darkened by years of neglect. Then comes the second soldier, a little more reserved, cigarette extinguished and the town behind him visible across a darkened grass field. The third soldier, missing an arm, scared. The fourth soldier, missing altogether, gone from the war he could neither win nor escape. The fifth and final soldier, captured, ruined. None of these fit the image Steve paints in his mind of James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th Army Infantry Division. It entirely misses the sober wisdom of wanting to see a job through to the end, the flash of an easy smile, hidden beneath the complicated layers, the sweet curve of his hips always prepared to swing into a dance.

“Bucky…” Steve mumbles, thinking that’s what these five soldiers are actually missing. _James Buchanan Barnes_ isn’t the name he went by, not to his friends, not to his family back home. How does Steve know that? The archives certainly don’t list that nickname anywhere.Sam would have dug that out after all the research he’d been doing. It’s because the archives aren’t worried about the man behind the soldier, only that he was a crack shot and a good leader and got the job done. 

The Army had never known _Bucky_ , they’d only known the serial number. It’s a shame, a damn shame, that no one will ever see him outside of the images that will certainly become famous once the treasures of the Lukin vault are revealed to the world and the story of _The Winter Soldier_ takes on a life of its own. Hollywood dramatization always surround paintings like this, erasing the original significance of a work as surely as if an amateur restorer got their hands on it and wiped Bucky away to make room for their own perfect soldier. Shield’s wouldn’t have it any other way, since that’d be the perfect distraction from where the art actually came from.

Steve slams down the top of his laptop. That’s not good enough.


	34. A New Mission

Steve needs air. His studio apartment is too small for all his frustration, so he grabs his coat and marches outside, not sure where he’s going until he winds up at Artists & Craftsman in Park Slope. The Met provides all the restoration department’s labs with everything needed for their work, but Steve spends plenty of free time shopping on his own in the fabulously chaotic art store. It has everything a professional needs to dump an entire paycheck at once and be happy about it. Browsing through online catalogs isn’t quite like handling brushes and tools for himself, or getting a feel for them before putting in an order.

Usually, he shops with a particularly tricky conservation effort in mind, or a restoration that requires specific tools. His cart is halfway full, loaded up on autopilot, before he actually pieces together his own plans. A premium Belgian linen canvas, a brand new set of oils, medium, turpentine, restrainer, tape, and fresh brushes. Steve hasn’t painted anything entirely from scratch since he graduated his MFA program, but the tools of his trade are easy enough to collect with each step in mind, thinking of his day to day work, touching individual slices of existing paintings.

After finding the right set of charcoals—a selection of firm and soft, and not forgetting the fixative—Steve takes a look at easels. At home he has one that’s survived since his undergrad, only ‘adjustable’ by sticking books under its rickety legs. Now, a workstation catches his eye with a fully adjustable double easel that folds up into a flat tabletop. It’d be perfect for his tiny studio apartment if it weren’t for the great holy hell of a price tag. He pays for his supplies, leaving the fancy easel alone. He’s not entirely sure what he’s planning to do with all this stuff anyway, and can just deal with his old one for now.

Steve spends hours staring at the blank canvas, and the blank canvas stares back, unimpressed with him. He’s already unwrapped and organized his new toys, then enjoyed a cup of coffee to get started, then another. After three whole mugs of tea, he sits down on the arm of his sofa and realizes nothing is happening.

Was this a bad idea? Steve puts down his empty mug with a heavy thunk against his countertop. This was a bad idea.

It had been a silly fantasy to think he’d actually be able to sit down and paint the soldier in his mind, the one even Arnim Zola’s masterful brushstrokes never fully captured. Not the soldier caught in a draft, not the prisoner of war, not the suffering veteran. A soldier that isn’t untouched by the war, but finally free from it, finding himself again. Steve drags his laptop closer, and for the millionth time looks at the image from the Monuments Men’s archives. Each soldier stares out at the viewer, using bravery as a shield, defiant. The photo is in black and white, but Steve knows Bucky’s eyes aren’t so blue in real life but a modest gray. Through his devilish good looks, his plastered on smile, Zola still saw Bucky’s hatred, and so interpreted it with color, making those eyes ice cold, shards of piercing blue, indiscriminate shell casings.

That’s not the Bucky Steve knows. He turns to his canvas and starts with a swish of charcoal, circling out the shape of a head in a bent position, the curve of the neck. Artists talk about inspiration striking, but that usually leads to gathering references, sketching out some studies, research in order to properly plan a composition. Instead of all that, Steve just leaps off a cliff into an impulsive freefall. His long fingers guide the charcoal with ease, his hearing aids picking up the soft zipping sound across the textured linen as his strokes pick up speed. Shoulders appear, rounding out in a relaxed position, then a hand clasping the back of a neck. Steve cocks his head to the side, quickly judging scale, and sketches a chest and the thin frame, bent in the middle. Steve gets partway down the thighs before he realizes that Bucky is seated on a barstool, his other elbow leaning casually on one knee.

Steve switches out his soft charcoal for a firmer pencil, and sharpens it on sandpaper before drawing the bar itself. It only takes a few strokes before Steve sees what’s missing. Bucky shouldn’t be alone. He never was in real life, so why should he be now? In the upper left corner, Steve adds triangles of whirling skirts, lets them form in the background as the composition organically grows.

A few men appear—the Howling Commandos—lifting their drinks in a cheer. A barman’s assistant wipes down the bar, and then Steve is back to Bucky, shaping the sharp angles of his dimpled chin, and feathering a few simple lashes out to show his gaze is cast downward, away from the activity behind him, away from the viewer of the painting. His smile is so subtle it may not even be there. He has a drink on the bar, untouched, the glass perspiring in the humid English air. These details don’t come through in the charcoal, not by a long shot, but Steve can see them in his mind, can feel the sticky floor and hear the laughter at bawdy British humor.

The charcoal rough is suddenly done, and Steve steps back to admire the dusty black lines that have taken shape on the canvas. This would be a good time to take a break, and Steve does for exactly five minutes between coats of fixative. He makes sure to rotate the canvas, carefully layering the spray until his charcoal rough is protected behind a matte barrier that will keep it from smudging when he starts applying paint.

The fixative needs to fully dry before he moves ahead, so Steve cleans up his work station and figures he’s due a break anyway. The charcoal rough is distracting, standing up in the middle of his studio apartment, looming over him while he makes lunch, so he tries to move his easel aside, carefully nudging the sloppy stack of books he’s using to prop it up to the right height. It’s fiddly, obnoxious, but eventually he gets it roughly out of the way and sits down to eat.

It’s no good. He simply winds up staring at the thing from his sofa, the urge to start again itching under his skin, like a compulsion. While he scarfs down his sandwich he keeps standing back up to touch the corner of the canvas with an eager _tap-tap-tap_ to test if the fixative has fully dried. Winter seems to be straggling, lasting all the way into March, with chilly rain in the mornings that turn into humid afternoons. Steve starts chewing his thumbnail while he waits, glaring at the weather outside as the canvas remains tacky. As soon as his finger comes away clean, he quickly drags the canvas back to the middle of his living room, mixes up medium and pigment to get started with the underpainting, and dives right back into his freefall. He’ll probably take a real break after, maybe start a load of laundry and gets some groceries before he looks at it again.

Steve starts by blocking out a bar in dark glossy reds and indigo blues, then lights up the subjects with pale greens and warm pinks. There’s a large man with an orange mustache and a bowler hat, arm thrown around a scrappy Frenchman in need of a shave. A British officer with a pencil mustache lifts his beret up as he bows to a girl in the cornflower dress wearing combat boots. A young soldier from Jersey, enjoying the show. A Black American, toasting with a Japanese American. The scene tells a subtle story about all their lives, something that whispers in the space between Steve’s hearing aids and the flick of his wrist.

Bucky himself isn’t excluded from the revelry, but he’s not engaging with anyone else. He’s at the forefront, filling nearly the entirely of the bottom right corner of the canvas, as if he were there to engage with the viewer, but doesn’t look directly out as he had in _The Winter Soldier_. Instead, his gaze is hidden by lowered eyes, long lashes dark against his cheeks. He wears a blue coat, brown canvas pants, gators around his leather boots. His collar is open, his shoulders relaxed. That smile is patient but wary, like he’s waiting for someone he’s not sure will show up. Steve adds another beer mug next to Bucky’s, just in case.

By the time the sun rises the next day, Steve has only caught a few hours of sleep in between coats. His apartment smells like a paint factory, like turpentine and linseed oil, and he throws open his windows to the brisk March weather outside and keeps on going. He isn’t entirely irresponsible, orders deli sandwiches for lunch and eats the leftovers for dinner. He recharges his hearing aids, takes a shower, and sleeps for six hours while letting the latest coat set, a box fan circulating fresh air around the painting. He doesn’t dream of the War this time, but when he wakes up that compulsion to paint is as strong as ever, and he doesn’t bother changing out of his sweats and undershirt before he’s right back at it.

Steve’s natural brushstrokes are much bolder than anything he’d use for restoration work, leaving his finest pointed brushes in their little protective cases. He’s not aiming for photo realism, not trying to capture the same perfect lines that Zola managed to turn into a seamless portrait. Trapping these figures in the bar isn’t what Steve is after, and doesn’t have the skills for that technique without reference photos. Instead, he wants to capture the warmth of the bar, the way the X’s taped across the windows keep the outside chill at bay, the sense that this is a sanctuary, unspoiled. There’s camaraderie in this place, a sense of purpose, of belonging to something so much greater than oneself. Danger is there too, suggested with a light touch when Steve leans a few rifles against the wall, a pistol at Bucky’s hip, a helmet slung over one empty chair. Steve gnaws at the handle of a brush, staring at the helmet for a while before he paints it blue, then adds a white A in block lettering stamped on the front, just making stuff up as it occurs to him. The girl has a bright smile, and Steve realizes she’s smiling at another girl, seated nearby. She dances like this girl is the one watching, and hardly cares about the Englishman’s offer one bit.

Steve smiles while he paints the women, wishing he could know more of their story, but also gets a sense that it’s not really any of his business.

The next day, Steve changes into real clothes, snaps a photo of his work, and texts it to Peggy.

_> >No idea what im doing_

Breakfast is quick and light, his hearing aids are recharged, and he sips coffee in his bare feet while he mixes a fresh batch of blues and whites. The painting is nearly finished, with only a layer of highlights left to add. Moisture on Bucky’s lips, polish on the bar counters, a golden gleam to the dancing girl’s pin curls, he wants to make sure the depth pops from the canvas as vividly as Steve imagines. For this delicate work, he alternates between fine and wide brushes, keeping one or the other tucked behind his ear.

A notification makes his phone rumble on the table behind him, and Steve smiles at Peggy’s short response.

_> >What you have to._

It’s basically Peggy for, ‘I told you so.’

Steve turns back to his painting— _his_ painting and no one else’s—brush in hand, and pauses just before swiping a thin line of titanium white across Bucky’s bottom lip. He’s done his best, but this painting, even nearly finished, doesn’t quite get there. Steve wants to save Bucky from that horrible fate that Steve himself had abandoned him to in _The Winter Soldier_ , but this is just standing on the edge of a real restoration. Steve leaves his brush in turpentine and sits back on his stool, wondering where he’d gone wrong with this composition. Maybe he should have brought Bucky back to Brooklyn, to a frivolous dance hall, the back of a bicycle, a movie theater. Then again, that would erase everything they’d gone through together.

Steve’s brain stutters, like an engine revving up.

_...Together?_

He’s so, _so_ close, if he only digs a little deeper he can find that missing connection, that layer of understanding that will give this painting back its soul. Steve reaches out to touch the freshly applied gloss to Bucky’s lips, wants to feel the texture, to taste—

* * *

Steve's painting by [Cryo-Bucky](https://cryo-bucky.tumblr.com/)! [[Fullsize here](https://imgur.com/a/AeF8PIW)]

 


	35. The Alps - March 13, 1945 - Switching Tracks

—Steve lurches forward, puts his head between his knees and dry heaves as his stomach flops over. He sucks in a lungful of air, shivering so hard he has to grit his teeth and hiss, nausea hitting him like a freight train, and doesn’t dare uncurl as everything spins. Someone pats his back, clucking reassuring noises at him as the universe starts to slowly drag itself upright. There’s a velvet-soft red carpet under his feet. A pair of empty seats in front of him. There’s a vibration in the floor, a gentle rocking that continues even after he finds his balance, and he looks to the side to see he’s on a train. An older woman beside him, taking her hand away as she says something Steve assumes is mean to to be reassuring. He can’t quite decipher her actual words through the garbled feedback in his hearing aids, so he flexes his jaw, as if popping his ears might fix the damn things. As it turns out she just isn’t speaking English. 

What is that? German? Flemish? ...Swiss. It’s fucking _Swiss_. 

Clarity strikes Steve like a bell, and he jerks his head back up, a wordless cry escaping his mouth as it all comes rushing back at once.

Arnim Zola! That son of a bitch who’d dragged Bucky out of the salt mine to sit for his twisted painting, and Bucky—oh, _Bucky_ —Steve finally remembers the sound of that laugh and the taste of those lips and all that pride and playfulness and sarcasm. Steve clutches his chest, his heart ready to burst as the memories flood every inch of him, all the tiny pieces of Bucky he knows so well, from the way his dark brown hair curls around the edges when it grows too long, to his deeply private fear of being left behind.

That’s when it clicks, the soul of the painting, the life Steve was trying so hard to capture. It’s Bucky’s life, all of it, and Steve himself had been the only missing piece.

Steve throws himself upright and the elderly woman blurts out something in surprise, but he doesn’t have time to pay her any attention. He needs to take stock, to figure out exactly where and when this is, and—oh, _fuck_ he needs to find some shoes.

Steve pats down his pockets, but since he’d been at home he’s standing there with nothing. At least he’s wearing a proper shirt, and not just the paint-smeared tank top he had on earlier. He mumbles something he hopes sounds like an excuse to the baffled woman and steps into the aisle to get a look around. The windows on the right side of the car look out onto a tree-spotted ridge across a huge distance; the windows on the left show nothing but the dazzling blue-white of reflected snow. They must be traveling along some mountainside, along the rim of a deep ravine. The walls are lined in damask silk, and little mahogany tables stand between each pair of plush velvet seats. It’s a passenger train, and a fancy one at that, able to operate in this weather in so much comfort. 

Steve walks slowly down the aisle, and can’t help but noticed the well-dressed people hardly seem concerned about the war, no one gaunt with hunger or frayed around the edges, like all those people huddled in the London Underground during the Blitz. Some are carrying on with low conversations, all in Swiss, and an older man dozes with a book in his lap, lightly snoring. Steve does a double-take when he catches sight of a newspaper folded up under the man’s empty coffee cup, and carefully sneaks it out from beneath the delicate china without disturbing him. It’s printed in Swiss, but Steve understands the date well enough. 

March 13, 1945. Only three days after his last visit! ...And the date of Bucky’s death.

Steve crumples the paper between his hands and looks around again, quickly putting the pieces together. This must be the very train crossing the Alps over the Danube River, the Howling Commandos’ last mission before Bucky is killed in action. No _,_ not killed, _missing_. He drops the paper back on the table and hurries to the front of the car, figuring a wealthy businessman like Zola would have a fancy private compartment, and fancy private compartments are usually near the front of trains, right? 

Steve stops, his hand on the door, because he really has no idea what he’s getting into and he doesn’t even have any shoes. It’s nothing more than an impulse that sends him this direction, nothing more than a vague memory of watching _The Orient Express_ on television with his mom that makes him picture some fancy private car where Zola would be lounging with a snifter of brandy, twirling his mustache. If Steve’s learned anything about taking even the smallest part in this war, it’s that he’s a child when it comes to real violence. What exactly does he think he can do about this train or Arnim Zola or the Howling Commandos _in his socks_.

What is it about him that’s so special, so deluded, that he decides he gets to change history? Deciding who lives or dies, on Bucky and not Juniper, on a single precious painting and not the other people it touches. How is it that he has any right to play medic while real wounded people are left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives? Steve thinks of the old man with the broken wrist, sighing in relief after Steve presses the cold pack against his skin to ease the swelling. He thinks of the kids trading the different flavors of protein bars he handed out, and the way the grandmother offered him a sleepy smile after a single puff on his inhaler. Civilians, like himself, making the best of a bad situation. That’s the truth of it, Steve isn’t special, Steve isn’t a hero, he’s just a kid from Brooklyn making the best of a bad situation.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, and hauls open the heavy vestibule door. In the next car he finds sleeping compartments, each cherry wood door polished to a reflective shine and inlaid with mother-of-pearl numbers. He goes through four of these cars in a row before he encounters anyone at all. There doesn’t seem to be any passengers up and about on this part of the train, but a young man in a uniform is posted at the end of the corridor. He’s reading his own newspaper, little bellhop’s hat telling Steve he must be some kind of porter. He reminds Steve of the flight attendants posted at the curtain between first class and the poor suckers in coach, making sure no one sneaks up front. It’s not that the kid is huge, and he’s probably just fresh out of his teens, but then it wouldn’t take much to stop Steve.

What is Steve thinking? Of course he can’t go through this guard using force, like some kind of tough guy. Just when the porter glances up from his paper, Steve decides to improvise. He turns to the nearest cabin, rudely jiggles the handle, then lets fly with a healthy curse. “God damn it!”

The porter jumps up from his stool, blurting out something in Swiss that Steve doesn’t understand. It’s a risk, a million things could go wrong in this split second, but what does Steve have to lose? He gives the door a kick for good measure, then stands back just as the porter approaches. “Locked my goddamn keys in there again! Don’t tell me you don’t speak English? Of course! No one on this whole damn continent speaks English anymore.” 

Steve slams his arms across his chest in an irritated huff, and when the porter looks at him with the helpless terror of someone fearing for their job, Steve dials it up to eleven. He taps his sockfoot against the plush carpeted floor and groans obnoxiously. “Oh for chrissakes,” he hisses, and gestures at the lock. 

The porter holds out his hand with a few, shaking words, and Steve figures the kid is probably asking to see some form of identification. Steve gestures down at himself, as if the answer should be obvious to any idiot with eyes. “I look like I got any papers? Oh, hell. Go get someone that speaks English, alright? Go on!” Steve makes a shooing motion and the kid looks torn, taking in Steve’s socks and then looking at the door, as if it holds the answers. Finally, the porter decides it’s worth getting the conductor and he hurries off, exiting the way Steve came.

Steve spins on his heels and dashes to the end of the corridor. He passes through a vestibule and into a car with a fully stocked bar, crystal glasses hanging from a rack above the polished marble top of an elegant counter. A handful of folks dressed significantly better than Steve sip bubbly cocktails from chaise lounges near the windows. 

A man behind the bar wearing a white apron blurts out something and Steve begs his pardon and hustles through the next vestibule. He probably doesn’t have long before someone chases him down, so he keeps going, car after car, until finally a shadow falls on the frosted glass of one vestibule door. Someone must be coming through from the other side, so Steve whirls around. In the vestibule itself there’s a lavatory, an exterior door leading to the frosty climate outside, as well as a small administrative station with a small desk over a row of cupboards.

Does he go back? Try to bluff his way forward again?

Two men rush into the vestibule, and Steve is able to slip out of sight in silence, discovering the one good thing about having time traveled in socks. One of the men throws open the lavatory door, talks to his companion, and Steve holds his breath until he hears them leave. He waits out a few more beats of his pounding heart before he nudges the little door open and clambers out from inside the tiny desk cupboard. Steve stretches out his neck, since cramming into the tiny box hadn’t been exactly easy, but it’s a good thing he’d figured the bathroom would be an obvious place for them to search. It’d probably never occured to the train staff that a stowaway could even fit under there. Being small isn’t all bad, sometimes. 

Steve presses on, making it through another two nearly-identical cars before he runs abruptly into a dead end. In the last vestibule, rather than coming up on another polished cherry wood door with its frosted glass window, the adjoining car is sealed off like a vault, locked tight with heavy, riveted steel, a huge metal bar crossing the front. It looks so out of place on the luxurious train, that Steve doesn’t realize he’s also not alone until an arm wraps around his middle, startling out a gasp of fright. A calloused hand clamps over his mouth just before he can scream. Steve kicks out, putting his attacker on his rear, and squirms around just enough to find the leverage he needs to drive his knee straight between the guy’s legs.

“Steve, no!” Someone grunts out, and Steve stumbles back into Dum Dum’s arms, leaving Bucky to throw one hand over his own mouth and curl into a fetal position. Steve’s panicked low blow apparently had perfect aim, and Bucky shivers in silent agony while Farnsworth stares in shock and Jones’ own face twists up in sympathy pain. Steve looks around, baffled that he’d managed to stumble into the Howling Commandos, then quickly accepts that yet again, whatever magnet pulls him towards Bucky has found its way home. Dum Dum pats Steve on the shoulder to get his attention while Bucky slowly squeezes hot tears out of the corners of his eyes and breathes heavily through his nose.

“Germans,” Dum Dum mouths, pointing at the steel door. “Guarding something.” 

“Zola?” Steve whispers, because he figures that must be who they’re here for.

Bucky chokes off a grunt and finally makes it up on his knees, then shoots a glare up at Steve. He’s barely holding in all the pent up attitude Steve deserves for that unfortunate nut shot, but somehow manages to get by with a stern look and a grimace. Steve gives him an awkward shrug instead. It’s really Bucky’s own fault for grabbing Steve like that, but happiness has already gone off inside him like fireworks, so he can’t help but smile. Bucky clearly picks up on it, and rolls his eyes because it’s not like he can stay mad either. Steve wishes he could kiss him.

Finally back on his feet, Bucky gives one leg a shake to loosen up his aching parts, then orders the others into their positions with a few quick hand signals. No one questions Steve’s miraculous appearance, used to it by now just the same as Steve. When Bucky shuffles Steve to the far corner of the vestibule, he leans in close enough for Steve to smell the gunpowder on his blue coat and says in a cracked whisper, “I know what you’re thinking. I remember what you said about this mission. You better keep behind us anyway.” Then Bucky punches his arm. “No lobbing grenades at Nazis this time, alright?” 

Steve nods, but it’s not even close to a promise.

Jones crouches in front of the door and lights a torch. It turns out Steve had interrupted them just after they entered the vestibule from the outside—how they’d managed that would be a story for another time—and unlike Steve, none of the hardened soldiers are deterred by the armored entryway. The heavy metal bar falls away from the white sizzle of the chemical torch like melting ice as Bucky and the others anxiously prepare for a reaction by the guards inside, just in case. Falsworth and Dugan catch either side of the rod just as it drops, and gently lower it on its slack hinges before Jones moves on to the wheel-lock, inserting the blazing torch directly into the keyhole beside it and circling the damage through the tumblers. It takes only seconds for them to silently breach the door, causing nothing more than a soft hiss and wisp of smoke as the metal comes apart. What happens next feels like it takes the entire rest of Steve’s life.

The Howlies expect guards, but there’s still a scramble when the door swings open. Bucky and Dum Dum lunge in first, and Steve hears Bucky’s rifle collide with someone who only grunts before they are immediately silenced. The others quickly step into the car, one after the other, each covering the next man as he enters in a perfect formation. Steve rocks from foot to foot, buzzing with anxiety as the others vanish through the door. It’s stupid, Steve has no business following them without weapons or training or shoes. Still, he feels a something in his chest tug after Bucky, a rubber band twinging in his heart, and carefully peeks around the corner to get a look inside.

This train car has none of the luxury of the others, nothing but hard metal floors and walls like the inside of a safe. Just like a safe, it’s clearly designed to hold precious cargo. Steve’s mouth drops when he recognizes the first painting, stacked on top of countless others on a steel rack in the center of the car. _Portrait of a Young Man_ by Raphael. Steve knows this painting— _everyone_ knows this painting—likely one of the most famous and precious pieces looted during the entire war. Stolen from a castle in Poland during the fighting and never seen since, that painting is thought to be the only portrait of Raphael himself in existence, and Steve is only a few feet away from it—

Falsworth puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder and he jumps at the sudden touch, which stops him from walking right up and grabbing the thing. He’d drifted deep into the car along with the others without realizing it. Bucky only glances over his shoulder, gives him a disappointed shake of his head, then shoulders his Thompson to join Jones and Dum Dum at the far door. Steve glances at the Raphael again, longing to touch it at least once, then tries to get a better look at some of the paintings leaning against the walls and stacked on the center shelving. In no time he spots what must be a Van Gough, a Degas, and more, all masterpieces. The car isn’t heated and has no windows, probably to protect the artwork from sun or humidity, and Steve pictures bullets pinging off walls with nowhere to go but tearing through precious pieces of history. The cold metal grate of the floor saps the heat right through Steve’s socks, and he shivers through the chilling image, exhaling a puff of frosty breath.

Steve steps back, fully intent on retreat, but then Falsworth, still posted at the door behind him, touches his arm to guide him the other direction. Steve looks down and finally spots the dead German soldier at his feet. He’d been so enamored with the Raphael he hadn’t noticed him, crumpled against the wall, bundled up against the cold in a thick, leather trench coat and warm woolen scarf. He was probably guarding the compartment, and had no reason to expect the Howlies to slip in so silently right behind him. Steve wraps his arms around himself as a tingle of fear starts at the base of his spine, reminding him that the stakes are so much higher than a collection of rare paintings.

The door Bucky approaches swings open, everyone raises their weapon at once, then freezes when they see Morita and Dernier on the other side. Steve and Falsworth quickly move up to join the others in the vestibule, and that’s about when the bullets start flying.


	36. The Alps - March 13, 1945 - Falling

“Down! Down! Down!” Falsworth cries out, and barrels into Steve so hard he practically flies through the doorway into the vestibule with the others. The metal door swings shut behind them with an ear-splitting _clang!_ And Bucky jams his machine-gun into the spokes of the giant wheel-lock as bullets pepper against the metal like hailstones. Steve hisses in pain, feeling the impact on the metal floor all the way through his bones.

Dernier swears in French, Jones and Morita continue to work on the next armored door, and Bucky orders Dum Dum and Falsworth to watch their six, all while Steve is still trying to find his own ass. Bucky drops into a crouch at Steve’s side, loading a bullet into the chamber of his pistol.

“You okay?” Bucky asks. Steve is definitely not okay, but he picks himself up off the floor anyway.

“Fine,” Steve says, trying to keep the ache in his joints from showing on his face. “You?” 

There’s a flicker of something in Bucky’s face, alarm and frustration, but it’s gone almost immediately. “We have to get to Zola.” 

“Sarge!” Morita shouts, as the wheel lock on the door in front of them spins open. “Incoming!”

The team splits to either side of the door and Bucky lunges just as it opens, right into the German soldier stepping out. Bucky ducks under the soldier’s rifle, sending the barrel and a line of bullets straight up into the ceiling, then jams his own pistol into the German’s bulky jacket and fires three successive shots. He shoves the German back into the other soldiers directly in line behind him, breaking their formation in two. Bucky and the dead German go down, just as Dum Dum and Falsworth open fire. The vestibule is not much more than a metal can, and the sound of gunfire explodes around them in a deafening roar. Steve clamps his hands over his ears to protect his sensitive hearing aids, and tries to squeeze himself into a tight ball as the ricochets spark off the walls and floor around him. One of a hundred bullets pings off the far wall’s metal surface, and Falsworth lets out a scream of frustration when he takes the ricochet in the meaty part of his arm. He drops to his knees, just as the gunfire dies down.

“All clear!” Bucky shouts from inside, and Steve scrambles to his feet. Dernier is clucking over Falsworth’s wound, and Bucky stomps back into the vestibule, dripping sweat and fury. His hands are covered in blood that doesn’t belong to him, and he tears open the top button open on his coat, breathing hard. “We got about ten minutes before they make it past our defensive line. Let’s get through the next car. Monty, you up?”

Falsworth grits his teeth when Dernier knots the bandage tight around his arm. “I’m— _urg!_ I’m up!”

“You sure about that?” Dum Dum says, reloading his shotgun. 

“Believe me, mate. I’ve had worse,” Falsworth says with a laugh, and takes Dernier’s offered hand to get back to his feet.

The next car is much like the last, a tall rack of artwork stacked to the ceiling in the very center of the long space, packing crates and larger canvases shoved up against the blank, windowless walls. Steve tries not to let himself get distracted, but within seconds he spots even more masterpieces than the last treasure trove. Pisarro, Manet, and a pile of engineering sketches that must be from Da Vinci’s massive canon. It’s all mixed together, like the world’s most expensive garage sale, canvases stacked by size, sheafs of vellum piled in bins with paper, scrolls, and rare books, statues wrapped in dish towels and leaning against gilt-edged frames. 

“Last door,” Bucky whispers, and Morita gets to work with his torch. “Falsworth, cover our six. Denier, _accompagner_ ,” he adds in French, and Denier nods quickly to follow the Englishman back the way they came.

“Intel suggests Zola travels with his own private security, not Germans,” Bucky explains quickly. “But those guys back there were definitely Krauts. We don’t know what they might carry, but odds are they ain’t packin Lugers like the—”

“I surrender!” A voice comes shouting through the thick metal door, just as Morita puts the torch through the lock. He looks up in surprise, back to Bucky for instruction when the pleading continues. “Do you hear me? Americans? I surrender!” 

Bucky glances to Dum Dum, who shrugs. “Guess he ain’t got the stomach for it.” 

“Arnim Zola?” Bucky calls through the door. “This is Sergeant James Barnes, Allied Forces. We got some questions for you.” 

“Yes! Yes, I know! I’m coming out,” the voice says again, high and shaking, obviously trying his best to sound intimidated.

Steve’s nerves from earlier climb into his throat, knotting up his ability to speak even as his instincts scream that this must be wrong. By all accounts some terrible accident will occur, resulting in Bucky being lost to history and Zola escaping without a shred of suspicion falling on himself or Hydra Holdings. Clearly, Zola won’t just quietly surrender now, at this point in time, without any other resistance. Steve has no idea how to articulate this fear, how to possibly interrupt these soldiers as they do their job. He casts around desperately, looking for some sign that there might be more guards laying in wait, a bomb set to explode, a trapdoor ready to be pulled out from under their feet.

Instead, something else entirely catches his eye. The bottom shelf in the center of the car is lined with metal trays, sketches and portfolios stacked precariously high over each shallow ledge. Among the loose vellum and stained parchment is the unmistakable edge of a canvas, just enough to reveal a red brick wall, a dented green bicycle with bulging panniers…

Even as the others work to open the door, Steve drops to his knees and tosses aside the loose documents. There it is, _The Winter Soldier_ by Arnim Zola, pre-Siberian ice damage. The colors stand out more vivid than even Steve recalls, the delicate glazes warming Bucky’s cheeks with color that Steve’d never seemed to recapture in his attempts to restore it. This is Bucky as he had been when Steve first met him, freshly liberated from an age of ice. That jaunty tilted cap, the glowing cherry at the end of a lit cigarette, and gleaming blue eyes, bright and terrible. The only difference is the bicycle pannier, stuffed with plenty of books, but no sign of a black star staring out like a void among the autumnal colors surrounding it.

Steve takes a hold of the painting’s hard edges, lifts it carefully from the tray, and gasps when something heavy dislodges from behind the stretcher and thumps back down against the metal. There it is, the journal, the _ledger_ of all of Hydra’s misdeeds, complete with blood red leather and that black star. 

Steve swallows hard before he finally mutters, “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

This is it, this is all they really need, combined with the photo— _The photo!_ Steve took that with him into the present! It should still be in the backpack, stuck somewhere near the bottom unless he managed to toss it out when he dumped everything out. Of course, it really shouldn’t matter now, since they can take this ledger to the Monuments Men and leave Zola to rot in Switzerland, unable to ever pass Allied borders again without being apprehended for war crimes. 

“Bucky,” Steve starts, but he’s too late, looking up just in time to see the door swing open. “Bucky, don’t! I have the ledger, we can—”

“Grenade!” Bucky screams, and instead of diving behind the metal door for cover, he scoops Steve up in his arms and lunges behind the shelves. There’s an ear-splitting screech of metal, and a sudden _woof!_ of overpressure pulls all the air out of Steve’s lungs. They hit the floor—or no, they hit the _wall_ —flung back so hard they crash onto wooden crates before finally dropping to the ground.

“Son of a bitch!” Dum Dum cries out, but his voice comes from somewhere far away, under water perhaps, beyond the whine in Steve’s hearing aids. “Sarge! Are you up?” 

“Up!” Bucky coughs out. “I’m up! Commandos, sound off!” 

Groans and curses answer him, and Steve finally opens his eyes. He and Bucky are tangled up together, lying on a bed of splintered wood and twisted fittings from a crate that’d suffered the worst of the blast. Steve shakes off the dizziness, then sees that the wall of the train car itself is torn open, a gaping wound of steel exposing them to the frigid climate outside. The wind howls through, ice and snow swirling around them in a flurry dense enough to make it hard to see.

“Stevie, you up?” Bucky asks him last, shouting over the noise as he helps him to his feet.

“I’m— I’m fine,” Steve coughs out, and fire suddenly catches in his side, heat blooming around his fingers where he clutches his stomach. Not fire, blood. Steve is bleeding. Bucky scowls down at him.

“Ain’t fine,” he spits out, and shoves Steve back down behind the surviving crates. “Damn it, Steve, let me—”

“Forget it,” Steve tells him, and shoves Bucky away to drive the point home over the howling wind. “The painting is here! _Your_ painting. The ledger too. If we get it, Zola is toast!” 

“You don’t worry about god damned Zola!” Bucky shouts back, drops the spent magazine from his pistol and reloads with one quick movement. He turns, something tense written on his face before he gives Steve a devilish smile and a quick wink. “That’s an order, soldier. Commandos, fall back!”

And then Bucky is gone, diving forward as the others stumble back, Falsworth on Dernier’s shoulder, Jones limping along, Dum Dum roaring a battlecry over the clattering rails and the storm. The metal door swings open again and gunfire pelts into the car, clattering against the floor, sparking along the walls. Bucky ordered Steve to stay put, but since when does Steve have to listen to Bucky’s orders? Instead, he clutches the burning wound in his side, something ragged and ugly and bleeding like a son of a bitch between his fingers, and sprints over snow-dusted debris.

Bucky stops short behind one section of shelving, fires towards the end of the train, then moves up, clearly having spotted the red ledger on the floor near the enemy soldiers. Steve doesn’t know if they’re private Swiss guards or more Germans, doesn’t know if they’re there to protect Zola or Hydra’s art hoard, but he knows that they are shooting to kill. Steve’s eyes go wide when he sees one duck back behind the door, and the other pulls the pin of a grenade. 

“Bucky!” Steve screams, and dashes forward. What’s he going to do? Throw his tiny body over the explosive? There’s no time to think, no choice to make. Bucky ducks, expecting gunfire, unable to see the grenade from where he takes cover. 

Steve reaches Bucky just as Bucky reaches the journal. “Bucky, no!”

The blast makes everything around them go white. Steve throws himself into Bucky as hard as he can, and the whole universe lurches around them as they tumble, riding the energy wave of the blast through the only opening it can go. The wind screams in Steve’s hearing aids as they pick up speed, flying free of the train through the gaping hole, and over the brutal Alpine cliffside. Steve claws at Bucky as he feels the other man nearly ripped away from his clutches, heart slamming against his chest as the world whips by them. The mountainside’s sharp fingers reach out to snag their clothes as they rocket past, scraggly dead branches snap and snow blinds him with its burning white light. The fire in Steve’s side flares with a rush of fear, his courage leaving him like his blood, his tears, and his hopes of saving Bucky. Steve screams in fear and frustration and fury, and as stars burst behind his eyelids he thinks that this is terribly unfair.

“Stevie!” Bucky cries out. “Stevie I have you. I’m not letting go!” 

But Bucky’s voice gets swallowed up by the fall along with everything else, and nothing stops the fire from consuming Steve, inside and out. He doesn’t expect to feel the impact, doesn’t expect his life to last longer than a snuffed out candle flame once they meet the ground, but the air is driven out of him all at once and the world finally goes still.

Steve is broken, his body nothing but pain and terror in some icy ravine, his mind fizzling out as the last of his energy is sapped away. He manages to crack open an eye, just enough to see the floor of his own apartment, and for a moment is lost in confusion.

“Stevie,” Bucky groans, crawling towards him. He slips, his hands are wet with melting ice and blood, but he makes it to Steve’s side. Icy crystals are caught in his wet hair, and dust his shoulders, and he trembles when he reaches for Steve. Oddly, Steve can’t move to meet Bucky’s seeking fingers with his own. Bucky’s face scrunches up as he gently grazes Steve’s knuckles with his fingertips. “Stevie what did you do…?” 

“Bucky,” Steve mutters, the rattle in his chest worse than any asthma attack. He tries to look around, but can’t move. Absurdly, the only thing he can think to say when his eyes fall on his own work is, “I painted you.”

Bucky’s eyebrows go up and his smile is so beautiful Steve wants to cry. “Yeah, pal. I just… you’re hurt. I need to call someone. Get some help. I don’t know where we are. I don’t know what happened.”

The fire in Steve’s stomach returns, and he blinks back tears that spring up in his eyes from the line of pain that pulls his body into a tight arch. It hurts. It hurts, it hurts. “Ah. Phone. My phone.” 

Bucky vanishes from Steve’s line of sight, and Steve can hear his boots clomping across his hardwood floors. Distantly, Steve thinks about the downstairs neighbors, about the passive aggressive little texts they send when they think he’s making too much noise, asking him what he’s up to. Steve blinks again, this time releasing the tears down the sides of his face. It hurts, and when he finally glances down at himself he sees why. A ragged splinter of wood, stained pink from his own blood, juts out of his belly, just to the right of his navel. 

Steve lets his head fall back down to the floor with a thwack that temporarily distracts him from the heat of his injury. It’s got to be a plank from one of those packing crates, blown apart from the first grenade. How deep? Steve has no way of knowing, not with the wash of pain that makes him feel like his entire body is filling up with hot lava. 

“Is this it?” Bucky is back, on his knees and waving Steve’s phone in front of his face. “Stevie, I don’t know how this thing works. You showed me that one time, but I gotta get some help here. Can I dial the operator?” 

Operator? Steve needs an ambulance. Maybe 9-1-1 didn’t exist back in the forties… 

“Stevie! Stay with me!” Bucky sounds so frantic, but Steve is finally starting to feel the edges of his pain smoothed away, and sleep tugs at him. “Fuck!” 

“It’s okay,” Steve finds himself mumbling. “Going to sleep, I’ll be home.” 

“We’re already home, Steve!” Bucky shouts. “If you die on me and leave me here I swear to Christ I’ll piss on your damn grave!”

“I love you,” Steve says, because he knows Bucky isn’t serious. Bucky loves him too, doesn’t even need to say it, can only really admit it in his own, vulnerable way. 

“Fuck it,” Bucky spits and marches away, throws open the front door, and Steve can hear Bucky’s shout for help. Not much registers after that, because dully, all Steve thinks about is how Bucky’d said they were _home_ , and that’s good enough for him.


	37. Restored

There’s something strange going on, just beyond Steve’s ability to reach. It drifts through his fingers, too slippery to get a grip on, and evaporates like a dream. His hearing aids don’t work, whatever sound he manages to actually pick up through the fog is disorienting, just as formless as everything else his ruined senses fail to discern. Steve’s mouth seems glued shut, and something heavy sits on his chest, weighing him down, keeping his own breath trapped inside him.

Steve’s numb fingers flop onto his sternum, and he feels the contact through his scratchy shirt and coughs. That’s odd. If he’s coughing he can’t be dead, probably.

Someone shushes him, soothing away the cough with a brush of her voice, but with his bad ears Steve isn’t sure if it’s an actual person or just the sound the sheets make as he struggles to adjust. Gentle hands press him back down, stopping him from his brief and exhausting effort to sit up.

“Where—?” His dry throat crackles like tissue paper, and he coughs again.

“You’re in the hospital,” she says. It’s Peggy. She speaks just loud enough for him to hear her, but her tone is more gentle than he’s ever heard. “You had an accident in your apartment. Do you remember?”

Steve remembers. Steve remembers _everything_ , and it still hurts. “Bucky!”

“I saw,” Peggy says, then chuckles warmly as she smooths the blankets back out over his chest where Steve’s made a mess of them. “If I knew you’d be such a natural talent I would have forced you to take a vacation months ago.”

“No…” Steve’s voice has to be scraped from the bottom of his gullet, every syllable a struggle. He’s not talking about the painting, he doesn’t need to be trapped under this blanket. “Buck- Bucky.”

“Hmm, sorry love.” Peggy sounds tired, but her hands are cool as she brushes Steve’s sweaty bangs off his forehead. It feels nice, and the flare of pain finally ebbs. “That Fentanyl is probably doing a number on you.”

Why isn’t his mouth working? Steve tries to force more air out, but instead he just groans, eyes prickling with the helpless frustration of having so much to say, but no way to say it. Bucky had been right there! In his apartment! Bucky had held Steve’s cell phone in his hand, asked how it worked, then had gone for help on his own. The EMTs had come, they’d found Steve, but then what had happened? Had Bucky come with him to the hospital? Steve doesn’t have any answers.

The next twenty-four hours don’t yield any answers, either. Peggy is watchful and oddly quiet, checking in on during visiting hours. She staunchly refuses to talk about work, insisting that it’s not his problem right now. As if it isn’t at all important what is happening with _The Winter Soldier_ , Pierce, and the largest client the museum’s ever had. 

Naturally, when it’s time to go home, she appears at his bedside with a fresh change of clothes and a pair of boots from his apartment. Steve is discharged with strict orders to get plenty of rest, and a prescription of disgusting pedialyte-type liquid food supplement. The doctor doesn’t come right out and say it, but she heavily implies he should stay away from painting until he’s a bit steadier on his feet. The supposed story of how he’d got so seriously wounded has Steve collapsing from exhaustion after too many late nights in front of the canvas, landing on a broken paint stick and impaling himself. It’s ludicrous, but Steve doesn’t suggest any correction to the story, mumbling something about how he had been working too much lately. It’s not like he can say it was from the shards of a packing crate, broken when he’d dodged a grenade tossed into an armored train car by Swiss Nazi collaborators. 

Steve’s neighbors had apparently called the ambulance, but no one can tell him how they’d discovered him bleeding on his living room floor or if there’d been another person with him at the time. Like any proper New Yorker, Steve doesn’t have much of a relationship with the folks who live in his building, other than occasionally knocking on their doors when the postman puts the wrong bills in his mailbox. The collection of tiny apartments and even tinier studios doesn’t have a doorman. At least there’s an elevator, and Steve is grateful despite the fact that it’s constantly plastered in graffiti, and creaks alarmingly just to go up three storeys. It’s hard enough for Steve to walk at all, and the thought of trudging up his narrow staircase makes the dull pain in his abdomen twinge. He’d got a look at the line of staples there, just once, when the doctor had showed him how to change his bandage, and doesn’t need any more reminders of it.

“Bucky?” Steve calls weakly, peeking in his own front door, but he already knows his tiny studio apartment is empty. The easel is still standing where he left it, his palette no doubt dried up where it sits on the table beside it. The room looks like it’s been tidied up, no blood to be seen, so Steve assumes Peggy had someone clean before he came home. His relationship with his boss has always been strong, but if he were to ever accuse her of mothering him she might just fire him to prove a point. Still, it’s nice that she cares. He’ll have to remember to thank her properly when he’s better.

Steve gingerly lowers himself onto the arm of his sofa, the softest place he can sit with a view of his painting, then puts his face in his hands to hide from Bucky’s distant expression. Where is he? It’s been days. 

Maybe he fell asleep and wound up back where he’d started. The train? Krausberg? Azanno? Or back in Brooklyn, on the bicycle, heading out on the town for a dance?

Bitterly, Steve considers that more than likely, Bucky would have plummeted to his death in the Alps, the timeline preserved. It’s hardly fair that after all that, nothing Steve did wound up counting for much. A few new scars, a few new ways to wake up sweating in the middle of the night, and some twisted source of inspiration to paint. Steve glances up to Bonbon, twirling in her blue dress for Connie, and as soon as his eyes catch on Dum Dum’s ridiculous mustache his chest heaves in a sob.

“Fuck,” he hisses out, clamping a hand down on his belly, trying to brace against the pull on his staples. “Get your shit together, Rogers.” Now is not the time to come apart at the seams. 

Steve almost laughs at his own joke, and slips off the sofa to pour himself a liquid snack. He’s hardly hungry, but at least it gives him something to do. His laptop is there on the counter, and he absently thinks about plugging in the long-dead battery to charge when something else catches his eye. The photo from the World Exposition of Tomorrow, he and Bucky crammed together in that photo booth, alternating between flirting, smiling, and saluting. Steve doesn’t remember putting it there, and when he turns it over his mouth drops in shock. Written in soft pencil is a note he didn’t write. 

_‘I’ll be back. Promise. -B’_

Steve turns the picture back over, as if the front of it might have changed, then looks around his apartment, just in case Bucky’d magically appeared while he’d been distracted. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen considering his life the last few months. Where could Bucky have gone? He’s got a seventy-five year gap in knowledge, no money, and probably a fully loaded side arm. In _New York._

“Fuck!” 

Steve searches the news, calls up the hospitals, even checks with the police, just in case. He offers them a name, a description, but only claims he’s looking for a missing friend. He hardly wants the cops actively looking for Bucky, so after a few days he’s stuck waiting in agony. It’s worse than before, his mind swirling through the possibilities of where Bucky may have wound up. Mugged on the subway, arrested in the park, hit by a car. Eventually, Steve circles back to the fear that Bucky had written the note before he’d fallen asleep somewhere and vanished from Steve’s timeline altogether. 

Getting back to work helps him get through the worst of it. Drinking his horrible protein shakes, suffering through agonizing physical therapy, settling into something more stable, more routine. The wound had torn his abdominal wall, severing what little muscle he’d had there, and he’s forced to do some baby-weight crunches to start building it back up. The best thing about his recovery is that he actually seems to enjoy his job again. A damaged triptych comes into his lab, and he gets Tony Stark to fabricate a new set of hinges based off the original designs, since the hardware is missing from the rotting wooden frames. It’s a fun project, and once they finish he looks forward to the next painting, and the next. 

On those really hard nights, Steve sits sleepless in his living room and tells himself that If Bucky has vanished, if they are once again truly separated, then any feelings for him would have evaporated by now, lost in that foggy place where dreams go to be forgotten. It’d be too unfair otherwise. Unbearable.

It’s already summer when Luis taps on the window to Steve’s lab, and tells him he has a visitor. Steve doesn’t really see the urgency, had already blown off Tony’s lunch invitation, so he finishes a layer of varnish before he sets his brushes in thinner and closes his stay-wet palette to keep his perfectly mixed paints from drying up. He’s not sure who might be bothering him at work. Sam would have let him know if he were coming by a day early. 

Then, Luis mentions something about his visitor, the art model.

“What?” Steve blurts out, halfway up the stairs. His staples had been removed weeks ago, and he’s avoiding the elevator in an attempt to shake off any laziness. Anything to get through his physical therapy faster. “Who?”

“Didn’t say his name, and I’ll be honest with you I didn’t ask after I saw him, but in my defense no one who sees your man would doubt it. He said he modeled for your painting, and since he looks just like homie from _The Winter Soldier_ there was no doubt.” Luis shakes his head emphatically. “No doubt. Hope you don’t mind, but Dr. Carter showed me that painting of yours and those _values_! Really inspiring stuff…” 

Luis continues on, but falls behind when Steve launches into a sprint, taking the stairs two at a time. Bucky! Here! _Now?_

Steve has to snatch the handrail to make the turn at the next landing, then bolts through the hallway towards the staff access door that puts him out near the reception desk. He apologizes to the docents moving in the office between the desk and the back rooms, then stumbles out of the last door into the museum’s massive Great Hall. He’s lost Luis by now, already making his way through a maze of museum goers picking up audio tour headsets and milling around the space in awe of the grandeur surrounding them, eyes turned upward to the high, domed ceilings and dazzling skylights. Steve skids to a stop at a set of wooden benches, and there he is. 

“Bucky,” Steve’s voice comes out in a whisper, and Bucky doesn’t hear him. A group of noisy tourists press between them, sharing one of the pamphlets from the information desk, and Steve grips his healing wound as fear fills his belly. “Bucky!” 

Bucky glances up at the sound of his name. His hair is longer, he wears a ballcap and a t-shirt, and badly needs a shave, but it’s him, it’s really him. Bucky’s face breaks into a tired smile when his blue eyes find Steve. It’s hard for Steve to close the distance, like there’s hardly anything left in his bones to force them forward. Bucky seems to struggle just as much and stands slowly, shoves his hands into his jeans pockets, and doesn’t even meet Steve’s eyes when he finally speaks.

“Stevie. Good to see you.” 

“Good to- _Bucky_. Where have you been? I’ve been so worried! I’ve called the police and the hospitals…” Steve trails off, wipes the tears from his face, and damn it if he hasn’t developed a sudden hair trigger on crying.

Bucky’s jaw flexes, like he might be chewing on his own tongue, and he looks back at Steve through his shaggy bangs. He needs a haircut as well. “Went to the hospital. You had a lady friend checking in on you. I met her niece. Sharon, something.” Bucky shakes his head. “Knew you’d be okay. Then I just… had to get lost for a little while.”

Steve doesn’t know if Bucky means he’d gotten lost in Manhattan, unable to find his way back to Steve’s apartment, or was just making himself scarce while Steve had been in the hospital. The way Bucky ends his sentence there, trailing off and awkwardly smiling at the floor makes Steve think there’s more to the story. Probably a question for a later time.

“Anyway,” Bucky continues, unprompted. “Wasn’t sure if this was going to be permanent. But now I think this is it.” He glances around like just another tourist, eventually following the massive pillars upward like everyone does, lips parting in brief reverence.

By now Steve can barely speak anyway, crying so hard he has to keep swiping at his eyes with his sleeve. “Damn it, Bucky,” he whispers. “You asshole.”

Bucky laughs, clear as a bell, and drops his eyes back down to the floor, not nearly ashamed enough for putting Steve through this drama.

“Sorry, pal. I brought you a present to make up for it, though.” Bucky reaches into a tattered book bag, and pulls out Arnim Zola’s red ledger. “I... wasn’t sure if this is what I was here for. If giving this to you would send me back. I was scared for a long time that- Well. Nevermind. Now I figure, if this is what I gotta do, I may as well get it over with.” 

There’s so much that Bucky’d left unsaid just then, but he pushes the journal into Steve’s hands, forcing the conversation forward. The leather is stiff, scratched and stained from what looks like years of use, but the richness in the embossed star’s black paint is deep as ever. When Steve flips through it, he finds exactly what Peggy had expected. Rows of Jewish names, followed by dates, values listed in Deutschmarks, the names of works, and their destination. Siberia, Poland, Berlin, Switzerland, all stamped one after the other with the names Lukin or Schmidt. Zola hadn’t been trying to be subtle, he’d been keeping a record to blackmail his partners in the case of a double cross. 

Steve frowns when he recalls the train mission having ended with the loss of Bucky’s life, Zola escaping to diplomatic immunity of the Swiss government, the Howlies left without evidence to charge him of any wrongdoing, and the trainload of art seized by Zola’s government and never heard of again. The whole thing had been a blunder, covered up, and Bucky’s death just another tally of loss during the chaotic, devastating war. 

Steve flips through to the final entry. _The Fist of Hydra_ is entered on the last line in elegant, scrawling handwriting. That was the original name of _The Winter Soldier_ , only no one would have known that without this record. Steve inhales sharply through his nose. “Thank you for this,” he says, and Bucky smiles again, his blue eyes sparkling, expectant. Hopeful, even.

“So. What now?”

Steve holds out his hand. “Now, we go home,” he says. He’s relieved when Bucky doesn’t hesitate, takes his hand, and the two of them head back to Brooklyn, together.


	38. Home

**New York Times - ART & DESIGN SECTION**

_Hydra Holdings Surrender Major Art Discovery as Investigations into Nazi Past Continue_ By SHARON CARTER

**July 4, 2017**

> An international committee of law enforcement and trade officials have convened once again in the Hague, Netherlands to listen to testimony of Alexander Pierce, Chairman of Hydra Holdings and CEO of luxury auction house, Shield’s. The saga started with the disappearance of art conservator and historian Philip J. Coulson after the discovery of a long lost bunker, housing over 500 items of cultural property.
> 
> The work, previously held by Shield’s who claimed the bunker as their legal property, has been revealed to be almost entirely looted from private owners, churches, cities, and local governments across Europe during the Second World War. Rather than providing safe passage to those displaced by the violence, a recently uncovered document reveals that Hydra Holdings was utilizing a Swiss collaborator named Arnim Zola to move the works between war zones.
> 
> Remarkably, discovery of this document was made by the art restorer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York tasked with restoring _The Winter Soldier_ , the first piece to be recovered from the bunker. Steven Rogers, a junior restoration artist at the Met, allegedly uncovered the document after clues left behind from the painting’s creator lead him to the New York State Military History Museum and Research Center, where he was able to uncovered a photograph of famed Nazi art dealer Johann Schmidt with Vasily Karpov and Arnim Zola himself.
> 
> “Once we discovered the identity of the soldier in the painting, one thing just led to another,” said Major Sam Wilson, art historian for the Air Force and curator for the Military History Museum. “Rogers was able to make connections that most historians would never see, since he was picking apart the painting as an artist.”
> 
> At the time of this writing, Alexander Pierce was not available for comment, but is scheduled to appear before the World Court on August 1, 2017. Two employees of Shield’s by the names of Brock Rumlow and Jack Rollins have been arrested as suspects in the disappearance of Coulson, and while a connection with Pierce is suspected, evidence has yet to be found.
> 
> The New York Times will continue to report on this story as it unfolds.
> 
> ###

“Sharon is going to nail these guys to the wall,” Steve says, letting himself feel part of Peggy’s pride in her neice when he hands the paper back.

“She’s a treasure,” Peggy beams, folds the paper in half and stashes it back in her drawer. “To think my brother was disappointed she didn’t go into the art field, like the rest of us. You didn’t do too badly yourself,” Peggy says, abruptly switching tracks and giving him a sly look.

Steve shrugs. He hadn’t explained much about how he’d come across Zola’s ledger, only that he had an anonymous source that was on the run from Hydra’s goons. It isn’t too far from the truth, considering Zola himself had tried to kill Bucky on the train. It also gave him a good excuse to ask his boss for a huge favor that happens to be hugely illegal. Despite what they’ve already been through together, hiding that painting from Pierce and fooling the Met’s security system in order to do it, he doesn’t quite know how to come out and ask how his favor might be going. Instead, he gives a an awkward laugh and doesn’t meet her eyes. “You know me. Once I start digging for something…”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten,” Peggy says, reading his mind despite his efforts to be subtle. She swivels around in her chair to pluck her purse off the table behind her. “In fact, I got your package from Sharon just this morning.” She slides a thick envelope across her desk. “More than fair payment in exchange for that ledger, as far as I’m concerned.”

Steve picks up the envelope, but pauses to consider its weight in his hands, the promise of its contents suddenly becoming so real. “Thank you,” he says, and has to clear his throat when his voice cracks.

“Give him my best?” Peggy asks, and there it is, an open invitation to tell her more, to take her into his confidence, but he isn’t ready just yet. Instead, he thanks her again and heads out.

Steve wishes he had his messenger bag with him to stash the envelope, as if walking through the hallways carrying it in his hands would bring the police down on him like a ton of bricks. He hurries back to his lab, waves hello to Luis on the way, but doesn’t stop for coffee in the staff lounge. He han’t been planning on leaving before lunchtime, but now that he has Sharon’s package it’s best he move along.

“Sleeping Beauty!” Tony Stark cheers, and Steve really has no right to be so startled, leaping up about two feet in the air and yelping like a startled puppy. The walls to his lab are entirely made out of perfectly transparent glass, and if he hadn’t been so distracted he would have seen the other restorer there, fiddling with his— _oh, no._

“Put that down!” Steve cries out, and lunges for the beaker in Tony’s hand. “It’s turpentine!”

“Oh please,” Tony sighs, rolling his eyes. “What did you think I was going to do, drink it? Besides, if this is turpentine then why doesn’t it smell like— ”

“It’s Gamsol! Safer but still not _water!”_ Steve groans. “Sniff it that close and it can still burn your retinas. And how should I know? Last time I saw you, you were high on ketamine and eating waffles out of a sixteenth century German breastplate.”

“ _Back_ plate,” Tony primly corrects, as if that’s the important part of Steve’s accusation, but at least he has the good grace to look a little sheepish. “You’re in a much more righteous mood than usual.”

Steve snorts. When has he _ever_ \- No. That’s not the point, not by a long shot. Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s strange how the one friend Steve’s managed to make at the Met (other than his boss, and maybe a trio of squabbling security guards) is someone he can barely stand. Still. Tony has his own brand of appeal. “Sorry, pal, I can’t go for shawarma today,” Steve says, capping the beaker with film, then using a step-stool to stash it on a high shelf. “I gotta’ run.”

Tony’s eyebrows leap up into his dark bangs with disbelief, as if it’s impossible Steve could have any plans that don’t involve him, then quickly gives Steve one of his more smarmy smiles. “Taking off before noon? I like this new delinquent Steve Rogers.”

Steve laughs for real this time, and quickly gathers up his things, zipping away Sharon’s package in his messenger bag. When he gets to the door he waves Tony goodbye. “Make sure you don’t burn down the building while I’m gone?”

“I work with fire literally every day,” Tony shoots back defensively, but hardly puts up much more of a fight.

Steve heads out through the front of the museum, straight for Fifth Avenue station, skipping his usual walk through the park. He can barely control his nervous knee from bouncing up and down as the train practically crawls back to Brooklyn, and doesn’t even dare distract himself with his phone. The elevator in his building is too slow, so he hustles up the stairs, gasping by the time he reaches his front door. He only regrets the sprint long enough to dig his keys out of his pocket and let himself in, then something else entirely steals his breath away.

Bucky looks up from his laptop—technically, Steve’s old laptop—blinking in surprise. He sits at the tiny counter that separates the kitchen from the rest of the studio apartment, leaning on his elbows over the glowing screen. “You’re home early.”

Steve rushes the counter, grabs Bucky’s collar, and drags him into a fierce kiss. Every day Steve makes it home from work, he half expects Bucky to have vanished back into the painting. Every day Steve has to prove that Bucky is here to stay, through some magic, some miracle, the man he loves won’t dissolve into the ashes of war.

James Buchanan Barnes, formerly of the 107th Army Infantry Division, sniper for the Howling Commandos special task force of the Monuments Men, listed KIA on March 15, 1945. Oh, how wrong history can be.

Bucky laughs into Steve’s mouth, the shape of his smile pressing into his lips, and finally breaks away long enough to close the laptop and slide it out of the way. “Alright, alright, show me.”

Steve opens his bag, yanks out the envelope and tears the end clean off. When he tips it over, a passport and driver’s license, along with a folded set of documents fall onto the counter. “Your new identity. James Buchanan Barnes, born March tenth, 1986. That’s your social security card. Driver’s license. Looks like this is your birth certificate. Everything you need for a new life.” Steve is so excited he’s nearly out of breath by the time he sorts through all the paperwork on the counter. “It’s not enough for you to get a government job, maybe. But it’ll be enough to get you started.”

Bucky gingerly flips open the passport book, a smile twitches his lips. “A new life, huh?”

A surge of energy forces Steve to laugh, and he can’t help grinning like an idiot. After months of anxious waiting, Sharon Carter was able to deliver on her promise to help the ‘anonymous source’ of Zola’s red ledger gain a new identity. Whatever contacts she has as an investigative journalist in international affairs must really have some pull. Steve laughs again, but Bucky’s smile is only half-formed, his eyebrows drawing together as he looks over the fat stack of validation.

“What’s up, Buck?” Steve says, when he notices Bucky is hardly as excited as he is to finally have a legal identity. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky opens his mouth, closes it sharply, then sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth in a nervous habit that Steve’s come to recognize. He reaches across the counter again, this time to gently cup Bucky’s smooth shaven jaw. “Hey,” Steve says, trying to urge his boyfriend out of his shell. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Bucky strokes the back of Steve’s hand, and takes a breath. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful. I think compared to what I had to go back home to, this is… well, this is more than I could have ever hoped for. Being here, with you. It’s where I’m supposed to be, I know it…”

Steve picks up on a familiar hesitation and draws back. Bucky’s never talked to Steve about where he went while Steve was recovering from his injuries. Steve suspects it has something to do with why Bucky sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, or even weeping. It worries Steve the most when he wakes up alone, then shuffles into the living room to find Bucky silently staring out the window, and privately thinks to himself that maybe sometimes—just sometimes—Bucky regrets coming with him. Steve tries to walk the fine line between giving Bucky space when he needs it, and being there for him when he doesn’t. It’s a challenge, but it’s something Steve understands. Still, he’s been secretly bracing himself for whatever this confession may be.

“But…?”

“It’s just. My old life. I think that is supposed to… well, it ain’t right that I died an’ no one knew the real me. My parents, my sister, her kids, her grandkids.” Bucky blows out a frustrated breath. “Dum Dum and Morita and the others. They never knew. No one knew. Not like I could say it, but after what I saw out there. Seems like it just ain’t right.”

“Okay,” Steve says, trying to follow along. “Do you mean you wish you could have told them you were gay?”

“No,” Bucky answers immediately. “No, I ain’t sayin’ I think I shoulda’ come out to them at the time. Only now, I think maybe there’s gotta be a way with the internet or something…” Bucky stops, glances down at the laptop he’s still learning to use, then shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Steve releases a tense breath, and picks up both of Bucky’s hands. “It’s okay,” he tells him, giving his fingers a squeeze. “I know what you mean. And I have a plan.”

“Of course you do,” Bucky laughs, then sniffles, and bushes Steve’s knuckles with his lips, sweetly hiding his face. “You just gotta’ be the Star Spangled Man With the Plan, don’t you.”

“Oh, shut up,” Steve blurts out, and drops Bucky’s hands when the jerk has the gall to laugh.

By that fall, Hydra Holdings has been almost completely dismantled, its assets sold off, the works in it’s prized collection slowly repatriated to the families and survivors of the war. Shields’ storerooms are raided, its files carted off by the FBI, and eventually, evidence of Phil Coulson’s abduction and murder brings the vaunted art house crashing down, along with its stock prices, entire executive board, and several of the private contracting firms supplying some of its shadier personnel.

After the dust settled, pieces of art thought lost forever had finally been recovered from the Lukin vault, gathered into the world’s pre-eminent collection, titled _Masterpieces Looted During World War II_. The Met is the first stop on the long leg of the American tour, including the mysterious painting that’d sparked the investigation, _The Winter Soldier_. Just as Steve had expected, the story of the painting, its mysterious origins and multiple iterations, feed speculation in the art world and popular media alike, and the connection with the museum only drives up the media frenzy until it becomes one of the most hotly anticipated events of the year. On opening night, Steve and Bucky decide to skip the festivities in favor of another show altogether.

It took several weeks for Steve to arrange, but luckily Major Wilson had managed to pull some strings. The _Gay Servicemen and Women in Wartime_ exhibit at the New York Military History Museum had been met with controversy almost immediately when it was announced. Far right groups picketed the effort, some even petitioned the president to put a stop to it, but at least in this one instance, sanity prevailed. When Steve and Bucky arrive, the small museum is packed, historians, reporters, and a surprising number of active duty military, many of who are now serving out and proud. It’s nice that Steve and Bucky are able to attend without drawing the slightest notice.

The show displays a wide collection of photographs, letters, memorabilia, and artifacts from America’s long line of proud servicemen and women, from every generation of its military. Seeing it all gathered in one place makes Steve feel humbled and honored all at once, but reading the personal stories of men too terrified to tell their closest friends and allies who they really were, keeps him sober as they walk through the carefully curated exhibit.

Bucky had never told Steve where he’d stashed his Howling Commandos uniform, just went out for several hours one afternoon and returned to the apartment with it bundled up in his arms, pistol and all. With his new identity, Steve is able to fabricate a story that Bucky is Becca Barnes’ estranged grandson, and together they donate the uniform and a sanitized version of Bucky’s true story to the museum. It’s draped on a featureless fabric mannequin, standing proud beside a framed photo from the Monuments Men archives on one side and the photobooth picture from the World Exposition of Tomorrow on the other. Steve doesn’t mind giving it up. He has a copy of it on his phone after all.

“Maybe this was it,” Bucky murmurs, staring at the small placard set on the mannequin's feet. “Maybe this is what I was sent here for.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Steve teases, giving Bucky a gentle nudge with his elbow, and Bucky laughs, shaking off his maudlin mood like an old coat.

“An angel, Stevie,” Bucky brightly explains. “Cuz’ I died and went to heaven.”

When Bucky says things like that—referring to his own, historical death—Steve feels a mixture of grief for the truth of his words, and adoration for the way Bucky delights in such dark humor.

Still, Steve can’t help but feel that Bucky is partly right. It’d never been the trainload of plundered masterpieces, the scandal, or the truth that Hydra Holdings stashed behind Shield’s pristine image that Steve had been meant to uncover. It is this, it’s Bucky, his story, his life.

“Going to introduce me to your friend?” Major Wilson says, materializing next to the glass case, two champagne flutes in hand. Steve holds back the swell of pride in his chest every time he has the urge to tell someone that Bucky is his boyfriend. Unfortunately, coming out has been the most difficult adjustment that Bucky hasn’t quite made yet. Steve can hardly blame him, and wouldn’t dare force.

“Oh, Sam! This is James Barnes,” Steve quickly introduces, just like they agreed. Bucky wants his past self to own his nickname, and it’d be pushing their luck for him to use it now that everyone associates it with _The Winter Soldier_.

“Nice to meet you,” Bucky says quietly, and thanks Sam for the champaign. He’s not his usual outgoing self in large crowds, not like he had been back in 1940’s Brooklyn, and tends to glance at Steve a bit too often to try and pick up on social cues. Steve figures he’ll eventually get used to it, will someday rediscover that boyish confidence, but for now helps his shy ‘friend’ out with a nod. Bucky swallows a sip of champagne. “Steve told me all about you. Your job is pretty inspiring, keepin’ track of all these records.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s not the job I thought I’d get when I signed up,” Sam says with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I thought I was going to be a big hero, swooping in and saving people’s lives.”

Bucky surprises Steve with a laugh. “So did I.”

Sam’s posture suddenly goes a little looser. “You served too? What branch?”

Bucky darts a furtive look at Steve again, obviously worried that he had just fucked up, but Steve isn’t sure what to say. Sam is sharp, and if they lied now he’d probably see right through them. Not that he’d guess about the whole time traveling Nazi fighting part, but still. The less scrutiny Bucky has on his fake identity, the better. It’s literally Sam’s job to find out information on New York’s military personnel.

“Army,” Bucky finally admits. “Infantry. Medical discharge. I um. I don’t talk about it.”

Sam gives him a nod. “Understood. It’s not something a lot of us like to talk about. Usually, we have to wait ‘til guys like us are about as old as guys like them,” Sam gestures with his thumb at the case displaying Bucky’s uniform, clueless of the irony. “Before letting anyone know the truth.”

“All I did was kill people,” Bucky insists, and Steve follows his line of sight straight to the pistol at the mannequin’s hip. “At least you got to be a hero to the ones you saved.”

“Not so much to the ones I lost.” Sam’s answer is so automatic it shows exactly how much that thought goes through his head, but he breaks into a smile and releases a tense breath. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget how much I carried back with me.”

“James…” Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s arm, thinking he should rescue him from this difficult conversation. He wants to remind Bucky of the men he’d been responsible for dragging out of the depths of Krausberg, for the fire brigade he’d leapt in to help with the burning home, for Steve himself, torn from a freefall with nothing but Bucky’s arms around him. Still, Steve hasn’t forgotten the Germans he himself killed, and privately joins the two real military men in the darkness.

Then Bucky gives a crooked smile, a little something like his old self sparkling in his eyes. “Damn soft beds will always remind you how comfortable the rocks were.”

Sam laughs. “Amen to that, brother. Hey, if you ever get to feeling like you’re ready to talk about it, I hear the VA down in Brooklyn has damn good coffee. Might help.”

Fat chance. Steve has tried to get Bucky to go to therapy, or a ‘head shrinker’ as Bucky calls it, but he flatly refuses.

“I’ll think about it,” Bucky says, and Steve’s mouth drops in shock. Bucky notices and is suddenly bashful again, but still, Steve is proud. They say their goodbyes as Sam heads off to mingle with the rest of the guests. Bucky gives one last look at the uniform, a responsibility that is no longer his, then pats his back pocket. “Hey. Are you ready to go? I think I mighta left my cigarettes at home.”

“I hid them,” Steve admits, and Bucky clicks his tongue in annoyance. That _is_ an adjustment Steve is willing to force, but only because he knows Bucky is trying to quit.

“How’d I wind up loving a punk like you…” Bucky mumbles under his breath, and Steve laughs so hard he can feel a slight twinge in his old wound.

It’s perfect, Bucky is perfect, and Steve wouldn’t trade this for all the masterpieces in the world.

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for reading! 
> 
> I absolutely fell in love with art restoration thanks to a series of Youtube videos, and then went on to read a number of influential books on World War II art theft and forgery. Over the course of about a month and a half, I poured this entire fic out in Google Docs and have been working with my phenomenal beta readers ever since to clean it up to share. 
> 
> I'm so grateful for collaboration challenges like the Captain America Big Bang 2018, which connected me with such talented artists to help bring The Winter Soldier to life, and fandom friends like Sula, Lyss and Demi who are an endless inspiration and cheer me on to share. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading! I look forward to hearing what you think!


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